It's just great to have some new material from Ric and the boys. It' a little strange having Ric sing every song on the album so obviously Ben is sorely missed. No, the record is not quite to the same level as the original classic Cars albums, but how could it be? Still, it is a lot better than many of the other so called long awaited comeback records that have been released lately. A lot of people dismiss the cars music as over simplistic, but these people miss the point. The simplicity is completely intentional, and besides I think a lot of people would be surprised how difficult it is to write good coherent simple songs. I have been a huge Cars fan from the very beginning and I would agree with a previous post that Candy-O is their masterpiece, but of course the debut is an all time classic and Heartbeat City doesn't have anything resembling a weak track on it. Panorama, their third LP is arguably not their best effort but still remains one of my favourites.
