The Cars are back. I'm glad, but...

When I heard The Cars were returning after a near 25 year hiatus, I was pretty pumped. They were my first musical love. I'm conveniently ignoring that Billy Joel's Glass Houses was the first album I ever bought. The more experimental Cars songs, and there are a lot of them such as this one, still rank, to me at least, as some of the greatest songs of all time. Their latest album Move Like This is shockingly good for a band so far removed from their prime and so rusty. The album really feels like the next logical Cars album if they didn't sadly piss away all those good years for no particularly good reason -- especially in a world where Journey and Yes literally took people from tribute bands and made them their new lead singer. I've watched several clips of the mini-tour The Cars did, and there are some stellar moments. Elliot Easton's solo on You're All I've Got Tonight is just phenomenal. But man does this band miss the late Ben Orr. No one in this band can sing back up if their life was on the line. Overall, the playing is really sloppy. I wish they had just rehearsed more. They were never a stellar live act, and this hardly negatively impacts their legacy, but please prepare a bit more. There is a small cadre out there who really appreciates their artistry and want to see it as good as it can be.