polar monkeys
Domino Records
camera explosion
★★★★
“Better be a mirror ball“. I already Arctic Monkeys warned at the first preview of his new and seventh album ‘The car’, which has reached all stores and platforms. And yes, a dance invitation (“It better be a mirror ball”) and a goodnight kiss (“Perfect feeling”, the song that closes the album), the light where the mirror ball turns against the walls amid the scattered images of worlds, glittering, dreamy but also illusory, fractal. From the sublime western that is the ‘car’ to the precious orchestral ballad ‘Body paint’ that goes through the funk of ‘I’m not where I am’ or Alex Turner’s magnificent ‘Sculptures where anything goes’. the sound emerges like a hallucination among dark synthesizers and is worth the music of one of Panos Cosmatos’ lysergic ‘horror-noirs’. A highly cinematic, tactile, elegant ride.
That doesn’t mean it exists some sleds (‘Mr. Schwartz’ is a kind of out-of-step ‘Hotel California’, recorded with Lee Hazlewood touches and Turner’s always flawless lyrics; ‘Jet skies on the ditch’ doesn’t quite work in a funky ‘arpeggiato’ fusion.) and in general, a bit of dynamism is missing on the disc as a whole, a Turner’s vocal performance is too monotonous – you don’t become a ‘charlatan’ overnight – no matter how well-seasoned with falsettos It is this.
back to the ritz
Some may be disappointed with this new album: ¿where is that nerve from the first albums, Turner’s nasal, wheezing voice, Matt Helders’ rumbling drums? However, in a cultural moment of nostalgia, Alex Turner and his men go free and forward. Full of ‘space pop’ textures, their previous album ‘Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino’ was a statement of intent, not an experiment. ‘From the Ritz to the rubble’ and now back to the Ritz.
The North Pole may no longer sing about sticky beer floors here, shy Dandelion and Burdock-flavored kisses, or lonely nights in crowded rooms, but still, still beating the feeling that happiness has escaped for a moment with the same force. As in the best Badalamenti, just one discordant note is all it takes in ‘It better be a mirror ball’. romantic dream acquires strange and disturbing colors. We are now in a universe of luxury hotels, imported whiskey and leather sofas, yes, but where the wall of the luxury room hides moisture, the ballroom curtains full of dust, the champagne hot and the air, very stale. Patri DiFilippo