By Bud Scoppa

In 2011, 33 years after The Cars’ astonishing debut album, a record that sounded entirely new and yet instantly familiar, auteur Ric Ocasek and the three other surviving members (bass player/singer Ben Orr died in 2000) came remarkably close to achieving the contoured crispness and in-your-face immediacy of their greatest achievement on the little-known or -heard Move Like This (on the now-defunct Hear Music). Their potent chemistry was undiminished on super-sticky instant classics like “Blue Tip,” “Sad Song” and “Keep On Knocking,” with the taut interaction of guitarist Elliott Easton and synth player Greg Hawkes, the howitzer snare hits of David Robinson and Ocasek’s wry, terse vocal persona on full display. That these long-separated musicians were able to make a quintessential Cars LP a quarter century after releasing what was supposedly their sixth and last album constitutes a small miracle. With the late, great Ocasek very much on our minds, Move Like This is a buried treasure that demands to be unearthed and enjoyed.