Arctic Monkeys - The Car (w/ Stuart McPherson)

The seventh album by Arctic Monkeys finds Alex Turner and the lads continuing the lounge-rock direction that began on 2018’s Tranquillity Base Hotel & Casino with a tight taut song cycle of baroque longing and cinematic style. Disappointing certain fans who hungered for the arch desert riffage of Humbug or the slick maximalist swagger of AM, The Car instead offers a dazzling smorgasbord of impenetrable inside jokes, straight-faced flared trouser funk and uber-vulnerable falsetto declarations of luxury loneliness. Due to extenuating circumstances, the podcast flies sans-Liam Withnail this week for a special non-list episode with Christopher Macarthur-Boyd instead discussing the record in question with Fife’s own Stuart McPherson. Stuart is an actor and story producer of BBC Scotland’s Scot Squad, as well as a stand-up comedian and co-host of the podcasts What’s The Script? and Some Laugh. Enjoy!