It’s been four years since Arctic Monkeys released Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino, their lounge-pop concept album that gave listeners a glance into the lives of those in the titular lunar hotel. With a sound almost unrecognisable from their previous releases, Tranquility Base was met with love and hate, joy and disappointment, in equal measure.
Yet their change in tone should not have been as unexpected as it was — 2013’s AM was also a sharp deviation from the band’s previous sound, its sultry basslines and seductive vocals a far cry from Favourite Worst Nightmare (2007). Arctic Monkeys are a band prone to change, and whether or not listeners agree with these changes doesn’t seem to bother them all that much.
With the announcement of The Car this August, it was hard to know exactly what to expect. Would they revert to their indie-rock roots, or continue in the chilled-out, piano-heavy vein? The answer, it seems, is not entirely either. The album feels like a culmination of the band’s journey so far, incorporating elements of their best works while also being something entirely new.
The three singles released to promote the album (‘There’d Better Be a Mirrorball’, ‘Body Paint’, ‘I Ain’t Quite Where I Think I Am’) take us back to the sound of Tranquility Base, with dreamy piano and sweeping strings once again reminiscent of a time gone by, but simultaneously setting itself in a time yet to come. This retro futurism creates a world of casual suits, slicked-back hair and smoke-filled bars — but with occasional references to modern day, or future, life. This is seen in the synthy-ness of ‘Sculptures of Anything Goes’, a sound that somehow still prompts images of flying cars and space colonies well after they were imagined throughout the twentieth century.
‘Sculptures of Anything Goes’ is a self-referential track, considering the not-always-positive response to Tranquility Base. Turner lets listeners know that there’s no turning back to the style of the band’s frantic noughties classics — empty canvases stretch out into the future, and they’re ready to paint them. Incorporating heavier instrumentals into the track, it’s a callback to earlier albums both lyrically and sonically, the band respecting their roots while reminding listeners that they were never going to stay those raucous kids forever. Arctic Monkeys have grown up with their fans. They have evolved into a sophisticated unit, the orchestral elements of the album suggest a maturity to the band that could only come with age and experience.
Although Arctic Monkeys might be best recognised for their songs about love, lust and romance, there’s always been a yearning for something else in their discography. Whether it’s an ode to a hometown (‘A Certain Romance’) or a general lament to lost youth, the band has never stuck to traditional love songs. The Car is no different, with songs’ emotions not necessarily linked to a feeling for another person. Turner’s reference to “that vague sense of longing” on ‘Sculptures of Anything Goes’ encompasses something far greater than romantic love, capturing a sense of melancholia that other artists would surely take many more than one line to evoke.
Turner has always been a somewhat cryptic lyricist, with metaphors and opaque references somehow working together to create consistent and coherent songs with real emotional depth. There’s often a personal touch that feels just out of reach, a reference to something that you’d only understand if you were inside the singer’s head. Other times, they’re the sort of lyrics that you smile at a few bars after they’ve been sung, as Turner’s already heading off on another flight of fancy. It’s no wonder that the band’s lyrics have been admired by poets and fellow musicians alike — if Alex Turner ever releases a poetry collection, it might make some people reconsider the hatred of the form that GCSE English created in them.
It’s hard to pick out any specific lyrics from The Car to highlight. It’s such a rich album that every line feels worthy of analysis, and choosing one would surely be doing another a disservice. That being said, “As that meandering chapter reaches its end / And leaves us in a thoughtful little daze” on ‘Hello You’ is particularly poignant as the singer reflects on the band’s career, and in ‘I Ain’t Quite Where I Think I Am’, “Stackable party guests / To fill the awkward silencеs” is a wonderfully visual image. Turner’s way with words is a force to be reckoned with and goes far to set the band apart from its contemporaries.
On The Car, Arctic Monkeys address unreality, a sense of lostness and a vague sense of melancholia in an album that is indisputably cinematic, particularly in its second act. Tracks flow together cohesively, each song clearly identifiable as something from this new era. However, each track has its own distinctive nature that prevents the cohesion from turning into a 37-minute blur. ‘Body Paint’ has a sweetness to it, while ‘Sculptures of Anything Goes’ shows us a darker side to the band that was missing in Tranquility Base. The laid-back instrumentals of ‘Jet Skis on the Moat’ may be reminiscent of the lunar hotel, but we can’t sink into that relaxed vibe for too long before Turner’s lyrics get our brains working.
The Car is Arctic Monkeys at their most confident yet, and the album reinforces once again their place as an essential musical presence of their generation.
Words by Lucy Carter
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