It’s been an exciting past couple of weeks for music lovers with all kinds of new music being released. The new Arctic Monkeys album “The Car” was one of many albums released recently on Oct. 21, 2022. It consists of ten tracks — a length of 37 minutes and 24 seconds in total — written by Alex Turner. This album is perfect for a listener seeking music full of longing and sorrowful love songs with experimental instrumentals. If you have gravitated toward their more pop-sounding, quick songs, this is not the album for you. 

This album is focused on instrumentals, and the songs are rather slow. There is a consistent amount of experimentation when it comes to their unique sounds and instruments behind the vocals. 

 Overall, this album feels perfect for hopeless romantics. It is filled with melancholy ballads about the worst aspects of love such as desperation for an ex, intense desire for someone else and dreams of love that will never have a future. 

My favorite song on this album is “Big Ideas” which is quicker than the rest of the album. It’s a song about a love gone too soon — Turner wrestles with the concept that his relationship is over throughout the song until finally coming to terms with it at the end. It’s reminiscent of “I Wanna Be Yours” from their 2013 album “AM”, except I found it to be a bit angstier. 

If you’re a fan of angsty love songs where there are always hints of pain behind the joy, then this is the album for you. I think that this is one of the English band’s strongest albums and does not focus on being fully pop, which is true of many songs that gain popularity on Tik Tok. Rather, it emphasizes the power of the instrumentals underneath the lyrics, which are often deemed less important in mainstream music.