“Can we please be absolutely sure
that there’s a mirrorball for me?”
I hadn’t heard these guys
in nearly a decade and one day
in 2022 their new album
came across the radar, as they say,
a new album called The Car,
and I streamed it out of pure
curiosity. This was not your
mama’s Arctic Monkeys, but
I loved it immediately, loved
it tons more than AM, which
seemed to me just another
in a landslide of good but
forgettable alt rock guitar
bands of the early oughts.
As is my practice, if I find
myself streaming over and over,
eventually I will buy the record,
and so I did.
This thing. I don’t even know
how to describe it. A more
significant transformation in
vibe or style is hard to find
in all of rock and roll, maybe
Japan’s move from glam rock
to New Romantic progressive
synth music, or XTC’s move
from punk rock to to the most
sophisticated pop music since
the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper.
The Car is a record that I could,
and did, listen to over and over
again without growing tired
of it. Hearing it now, it remains
a master-class in melody, strange
lyrical moves, no discernible
rhyming, crooning, almost
lounge-like, jazz vocal stylings,
minimalist but lush instrumentation,
strings, timpani and shit.
No guitar distortion, save for
an occasional tasty lead, nothing
remotely devil-horns rock and roll.
It made me an Arctic Monkeys convert.
It’s been three, almost four years.
I can’t wait to see what’s next.
“Hello, you. Still dragging out
a long goodbye.”
Notes on the vinyl edition: The Car, Domino Recording Co. Ltd. 2022, black vinyl
Postscript in Bullets
- I’m listening to all of my records, from A to Z. Writing a “poem” about each artist. It may take me a long-ass time to complete this project.
- I’m trying to write poems, not reviews. It’s not always gonna work out that way. But I am giving myself permission to be digressive, autobiographical, discursive, associative, and actually prefer that, when it occurs.
- I will only “cheat” when I come to a record that I have listened to recently. That has not happened yet.
michael jarmer 