( Rolling Stone ) -- There are moments when `` Move Like This , '' the first new album by the Cars in 24 years , sounds so much like a record by the Cars that you find yourself laughing out loud . Take `` Sad Song , '' on which the opening salvo -- a terse guitar strum set against the machinelike thwack of snare drum and hand claps -- is such a note-perfect evocation of the band 's vintage attack that it almost plays like winking self-parody . Ronald Reagan was mired in the Iran-Contra scandal when Ric Ocasek and Co. released their last studio album ; Benjamin Orr , the Cars ' bassist and co-lead singer , died of pancreatic cancer in 2000 . But the Cars have n't moved their music an inch . This is the sound of a band picking up a conversation in midsentence . Rolling Stone : Watch the Cars return with surreal 'Sad Song ' Can you blame them ? Their hits are still radio mainstays , and their influence is audible in successive generations of pop-savvy rockers , from Weezer to the Strokes . Listen back to `` Just What I Needed '' or `` Drive '' and you 'll hear where many of today 's young bands learned their tricks : how to mix guitars and synthesizers , how to make rock that 's as tuneful as bubblegum , and pop that 's as stylishly sinister as rock . `` Move Like This '' is a reminder that New Wave can still sound new , especially when the Cars do it . Produced with skillful restraint by Ocasek , his bandmates and the dependable Jacknife Lee ( the Hives , Snow Patrol ) , the album calls to mind adjectives long associated with the Cars : taut , sleek , seamless , efficient . It 's a record that whizzes past -- 10 songs in less than 40 minutes -- leaving behind a dark gleam . Rolling Stone : New Wave heroes the Cars roar back on reunion record . It opens with a socko one-two punch : `` Blue Tip '' and `` Too Late , '' textbook Cars songs that place Ocasek 's deadpan atop Elliot Easton 's tensile lead guitar and Greg Hawkes ' blipping , squealing keyboards . The Cars have been called post-punk pop classicists -- what Buddy Holly might have sounded like had he lived long enough to trade in his Strat for a Roland synthesizer . But the thing that has really set them apart is groove , and Ocasek is at his best in songs like `` Keep on Knockin ' , '' singing a jittery version of the boogie blues . Ocasek 's lyrics can be hard to parse , whether about sex ( `` Your waxy face is melting on your lap/I sat there trying to crush a gingersnap '' ) or politics ( `` Sanctuary in the heartland/Black-and-white TV/Stroking all the gunheads/ To the ninth degree '' ) . But for Ocasek , the sound is more important than the message -- in fact , the sound is the message . The Cars have always been mood-music specialists ; their cold , brittle , shiny songs evoke long nights , jagged nerves , frustrated longings . Rolling Stone gallery : Random notes , rock 's hottest photos . Orr added some warmth , a touch of daylight , to the proceedings , but with him gone , Ocasek has burnished the group 's music to a glossier shade of noir . `` Your eyes are dim , your heart is blue/'Cause nothing ever lasts , '' Ocasek croaks over chiming guitar arpeggios in `` Take Another Look '' ; on `` Sad Song , '' he sings , `` It 's just a sad song that pulls you along . '' Long after we thought we 'd heard the last from them , the Cars have made their darkest , most romantic album . It pulls you along . Copyright © 2010 Rolling Stone .
The Cars EP is the ` ` record of a couple striking up a conversation in midsentence '' Cars ' hits are still big hits , and their influence is audible . ` ` Move Like This '' is a reminder that New Wave can still sound new .