The Cars' new 'Move': All they can do?

By Brian Mansfield, USA TODAY

After 24 years, the new wave band is back with a solid yet overly familiar collection

  • Let's go: Ric Ocasek, left, Elliot Easton, Greg Hawkes and David Robinson of The Cars tread familiar ground on Move Like This, their first album in 24 years.

    By Todd Plitt, USA TODAY

    Let's go: Ric Ocasek, left, Elliot Easton, Greg Hawkes and David Robinson of The Cars tread familiar ground on Move Like This, their first album in 24 years.

By Todd Plitt, USA TODAY

Let's go: Ric Ocasek, left, Elliot Easton, Greg Hawkes and David Robinson of The Cars tread familiar ground on Move Like This, their first album in 24 years.

The Cars, Move Like This

* * NEW WAVE NEW AGAIN

Despite a two-decade gap in their discography, the reunited members of The Cars don't sound as if they've missed a beat. On the group's first album since 1987's all-but-forgotten Door to Door, all the factory-standard features of the '80s-model Cars remain in place: the straight-eight new-wave drive, Greg Hawkes' sawtooth synth lines, Ric Ocasek's evocatively tuneless way of singing, even the syncopated handclaps.

But something's missing, and it's not just bassist/co-vocalist Benjamin Orr, who sang Just What I Needed and Drive and died of pancreatic cancer in 2000.

Move Like This has everything that's great about The Cars except the hits: It's like an album that has Moving in Stereo but no My Best Friend's Girl, with It's Not the Night but no Magic. Ultimately, this relaunch evokes the desire to return to the original tunes rather than to play these new ones on repeat. ? Brian Mansfield

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