The automotive is likely one of the most potent symbols in rock’n’roll. Usually it stands for freedom, escape, private company and a mysterious, no-strings sexuality. However the place rock’n’roll symbolism is anxious, Arctic Monkeys wish to have their cake and eat it: no matter you suppose it’s, that’s what it’s not. In lead single and album opener “There’d Higher Be A Mirrorball”, the automotive shouldn’t be the start of a brand new journey however the finish of 1, the place to stroll somebody when giving them the final word brush-off: “‘Child, it’s been good’”.
It is a totally different Alex Turner to the one we’re used to listening to. Incorrect-footed for as soon as, he’s desperately attempting to “throw the rose-tint” on a failing relationship, pleading poignantly for the slow-dance scene everyone knows he’s not going to get. Nonetheless, “…Mirrorball”’s exquisitely fizzling romance is atypical of the album as a complete. Turner is quickly again in his favoured position as cynical chronicler of a decadent milieu. As he as soon as scrutinised Sheffield taxi queues, now he stalks cowl shoots and riviera resorts, the Bryan Ferry de nos jours. And whereas there was a knockabout humour to the sci-fi Vegas fantasia of Tranquility Base Resort & On line casino, The Automotive on the entire feels fairly bleak. If golden boy was in unhealthy form then, he’s in actual hassle now.
There’s an excellent Ian Penman essay entitled “A Dandy In Aspic”, psycho-analysing Scott Walker’s early ’70s as he sinks right into a comfortably numb “MOR limbo” of brown-carpeted studios and European TV spots. That is very a lot the psychological terrain of The Automotive. “Let’s shake a couple of palms”, Turner declares unsteadily on the clipped orchestral funk of “I Ain’t Fairly The place I Assume I Am”, stumbling like a Xanaxed superstar via a roomful of “stackable celebration visitors” and “formation shows of affection”. On “Sculptures Of Something Goes”, he’s a zombie pop star going via the motions, “performing in Spanish on Italian TV” whereas craving pathetically for a easy love his chosen way of life has rendered not possible. And on “Large Concepts” he’s a burnt-out bandleader, singing “the ballad of what might have been”. He’s “conjured up fantastic issues”, he coulda been a contender. However lately, “I simply can’t for the lifetime of me keep in mind how they go”.
As at all times, the brutal precision of Turner’s observations and the way in which he relishes a wise flip of phrase brings these vignettes to life in a method that’s virtually frighteningly vivid, even when his circuitous melodies don’t at all times land. “Sculptures Of Something Goes” chillingly depicts a form of Black Mirror-style dystopia, the place significant experiences can solely be accessed by the use of a VR headset (“The simulation cartridge for Metropolis Life ’09 is fairly tough to come back by”). The suffocating sense of dread is underscored by a lurching industrial beat, within the method of Portishead’s “Machine Gun”.
In the meantime, the title monitor finds one other solution to recast our conventional image of escape as one thing each mundane and sinister. “It ain’t a vacation till you go to fetch one thing from the automotive”, croons Turner, darkly. At finest, this can be a mutually resentful couple making any excuse to flee one another’s firm for a couple of moments. However as they’re “sweeping for bugs in some dusty residence”, you watched one thing even murkier is occurring: possibly there’s a brick of cocaine within the glovebox, a cudgel within the boot? The preparations nod knowingly to Jean-Claude Vannier and Piero Umiliani, all twanging bass, muted timpani and fin-de-siècle strings. It’s cinematic, however not within the conventional, ride-into-the-sunset sense. Largely, this appears like a type of French arthouse movies the place a bourgeois get-together goes slowly very incorrect.
There’s nothing right here fairly as spectacular as “…Mirrorball”, arguably Turner’s crowning achievement to this point, worthy of a seat on the huge white piano alongside Burt and Hal. Maybe Facet Two of the album might have accomplished with extra rockers, extra drum-machine curveballs, a few tracks with out the ever-present string cascade or guitar solos that sound like they’ve been painstakingly excavated from the location of Trident Studios, carbon-dated 1973. However alternatively, this meticulous mood-setting is what permits the lyrics to take maintain, expertly conjuring an unique, enfeebled demi-monde of “clean canvases lent towards gallery partitions”, “Jet Skis on the moat” and “a four-figure sum on a resort notepad”. It’s empty and amoral but it surely’s additionally irresistibly easy and intelligent. Very similar to For Your Pleasure or Gaucho, The Automotive capabilities each as intoxicating advert and withering critique.
Has there ever been a band who’ve bought out soccer stadiums whereas releasing music as nuanced as this? Arctic Monkeys are having their cake and consuming it, once more.
