Troublizing

This is what The Cars might have sounded like in 1997 had they gone back to their roots and recorded an album whose sound owed more to nostalgia than art school. Back in the late '70s, Ric Ocasek had made known his love of the band Suicide, so there is lots of winningly self-styled postpunk, sparse electronic sounds, and glam here. “The Next Right Moment” swimmingly blends cinematic soundscapes and crushing guitars, while pathos and Cars-esque outsiderisms dovetail on “Crashland Consequences” and “Here We Go.” The irresistible “Hang on Tight” and “People We Know” are every bit as good as his old band’s “It’s All I Can Do," even with Ocasek’s man-in-a-machine emoting in place of golden-voiced Cars man Ben Orr. The Cars proved that no one was better at toe-tappingly backdated-futurist pop than their songwriter Ric Ocasek—and here, even production by Smashing Pumpkin Billy Corgan couldn’t bring anything to the table that Ocasek hadn’t already thought of or used before. This is Ocasek’s best solo album; think Coney Island Baby–era Lou Reed gone pop.