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Oct 21, 2022The Car, the band’s seventh album (and is the exact same length as their second album Favourite Worst Nightmare to the second) is another step further into the cinematic world they created on Tranquility Base. ... This band have continuously captivating for nearly two decades now, and Alex Turner must be a generational talent. So clearly this is a great album.
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Oct 18, 2022‘The Car’ is almost overwhelming in terms of its ambition and scope, but provides ample motive to revisit this record over and over again.
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Oct 19, 2022A case can be made for the transitional albums, like 2011’s at ease with itself Suck It And See. The Car, however – in which a songwriter matures and finds an unexpected emotional range – is sure ultimately to be ranked in the band’s very top tier.
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Nov 7, 2022The Car is a slick mover, immaculately appointed and often beautiful. What it’s driving at, though, can feel naggingly elusive.
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Oct 31, 2022There is one salient, nailed-on fact about this enigmatic album, however. It’s how easily its most anthemic cuts will slot into those revved-up Arctic Monkey festival set lists.
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Oct 24, 2022AM was so heart-wrenchingly excellent that it looms over the Sheffield rockers and their fans, but unlike 2018’s Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino, The Car seems like its true predecessor.
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Oct 21, 2022The Car feels warmer and more soulful than its predecessor, in its orchestral sweep not dissimilar to Turner’s first side project as The Last Shadow Puppets, 2008’s The Age of the Understatement. As such, it may be more a solo album than an Arctic Monkeys record, but it’s a very good one nonetheless.
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Oct 20, 2022The Arctic Monkeys of old are long gone and so too should any expectations of them returning to dirty dancefloors. With The Car, the band become increasingly comfortable in their lounge-laden musical attire.
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Oct 20, 2022This is a more soulful, less arch record than Tranquility Base. Not quite as detached from Monkeys past as it first appears, either. [Dec 2022, p.84]
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Oct 20, 2022With regularity on The Car, Turner will begin an idea that he does not finish, or he’ll introduce something totally different just when you start following along. He has become a master of turns of phrases that don’t necessarily cohere but still feel right.
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Oct 19, 2022It’s Turner’s persona that gives The Car its charm and intrigue, though. Where Tranquility Base… provided his obtuse lyricism with a sci-fi framework, here it roars off in every direction, as wonderfully imagistic as it is largely impenetrable.
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Oct 19, 2022The Car flickers between solemn nostalgia but also having a blast – a journey which can be unsettling but fun and surprising in a way that you wouldn’t expect.
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Oct 19, 2022The Car is a deftly constructed, lavishly produced, smooth runner of an album that undoubtedly reaffirms Turner as one of the great romantic lyricists of his generation.
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Oct 18, 2022The Car is an enormously tactile record, full of strange textures – a lint-roller runs over velveteen, body paint clings to legs, arms, face, and tears are cried in a tanning booth.
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Oct 17, 2022Turner's observations and the way he relishes a smart turn of phrase bring these vignettes to life in a way that's almost frighteningly vivid, even when his circuitous melodies don't always land. ... Much like For Your Pleasure or Gaucho, The Car functions both as intoxicating advert and withering critique. [Dec 2022, p.24]
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Oct 17, 2022‘The Car’ is Alex and crew’s most soundtrack-like work so far, flowing together in one long movement made cohesive by Bridget Samuels’ lush orchestral arrangements which adorn it.
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Oct 17, 2022On The Car, they deploy Fitzgeraldian tendencies, throwing a party with a lingering, enigmatic atmosphere. As long as there’s a mirror ball, you can be assured a fun time.
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Oct 23, 2022The Car is crackling with a wickedly fun energy underneath the surface of its mid-tempo mugging, if you're willing to take the commute and meet it halfway.
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Oct 26, 2022Turner seems to be angling for atmosphere, not hooks, with his melodies. The free-floating croon helps The Car amiably drift in space but it also highlights how the record could use a couple of elements to bring it back to earth.
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Oct 24, 2022The Car definitely keeps with the trajectory that Arctic Monkeys have been following since the release of Whatever People… and Favorite Worst Nightmare. Depending on what your outlook on the band’s releases has been will determine whether you think The Car is in keeping with an upward or downward trajectory.
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Oct 21, 2022The direction they’ve taken here finds them flexing their muscles in a way that sheds the cheeky irony of Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino in favor of a more plaintive earnestness, while at the same time building on that album’s sense of adventure.
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Oct 20, 2022The Car is a beautiful calling card for this opulent new version of Arctic Monkeys, even if it lacks the immediacy the band built its reputation on.
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Oct 25, 2022If The Car is any automobile in particular, it’s a Ferrari or Lamborghini; you might watch it pass for a moment, admiring its sleek curves, shimmering façade and purring engine, but you won’t care much about the driver – and once it’s out of view, it probably won’t be long before it fades from memory.
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Oct 17, 2022Though there are some intriguing highlights, The Car isn’t anywhere near the evocative heights that Arctic Monkeys have reached throughout their now-storied career — and perhaps that’s the point.
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Oct 17, 2022This album is, to be clear, an ambitious, stylish, coherent work of fine art. ‘Tranquility Base…’ grew on me, this may too. But I can’t help but feel that with ‘The Car’, Arctic Monkeys have taken a wrong turn.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 231 out of 289
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Mixed: 24 out of 289
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Negative: 34 out of 289
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Oct 21, 2022Alex turner continues his boring hotel lobby music in the monkeys new album. Absolutely pretentious rubbish from start to finish.
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Oct 21, 2022
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Oct 21, 2022There is much better lounge music from other decades!!! This is boring pretentious drivel.