Album Review: Move Like This

I was caught totally off-guard last week by the arrival of the new Cars album Move Like This. After Ben Orr’s death and the “New Cars” album a couple years back (pleasant and nostalgic, but without much content) it didn’t seem likely that we’d hear from this group again. I listened to it 4 times in the first 3 days I owned it and am really pleased with it. It sounds enough like their old stuff to be familiar, but is interesting enough to feel like something new and different. I never bought their last studio album, Door to Door, in part because it sounded extremely overproduced. This album is very synth-heavy, but manages to avoid this problem.

My favorites on the album are Blue Tip and Sad Song. I wasn’t sure what to make of the extreme synths on Blue Tip at first, but they have grown on me. Sad Song is the most overt homage to the classic Cars songs, complete with handclaps.Drag On Forever is a nasty breakup song and I confess I like it anyway. Probably my least favorites on the album are Soon and Take Another Look. These are ballads, which I wasn’t expecting and which have never been the Cars’ best songs in my opinion. They aren’t bad but would probably be the last songs I would buy as individual tracks.

My complaint about this album, and it’s not a big one, would be that there don’t seem to be any simple, sing-along songs like Shake It Up or My Best Friend’s Girl. The songs Free, Hits Me, and Keep on Knocking sound like they might be trying to be such songs, but they lack the huge hooks and the perky guitar solos that the group was known for 30 years ago. Instead, the whole album feels like it’s more complex and needs repeated listening to appreciate. In this it reminds me more of my favorites on the album Candy-O, or of what Panorama might have sounded like to me if I had actually enjoyed it.

Overall, Move Like This is a nice surprise and a great way to start the summer. I’d recommend it to anyone who even remotely liked the old Cars albums. (If I was still in touch with him, I’d even recommend it to my friend Joe the Cars fanatic, who hated Heartbeat City and said Candy-O was his favorite album.) It’s like a visit from an old friend: neither of you are the same as you used to be, but it’s still good to spend time together again.

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