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If space is truly the final frontier, Turner seems to be saying, humans will just muck that up, too. The title track’s dusty rhythms and sexy bass notes can’t disguise the fact this resort on the moon isn’t any better than what’s down here on earth. The only moments of peace seem found in whatever imaginary lounge Turner concocts for these songs to live. But even in orbit, Turner can’t seem to find relief from the daily grind. On Domino’s commendable analog pressing, Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino comes across as if the band is floating in outer space. The ace production, too, frames such accents around Tuner’s voice-extremely well recorded, present, and dead-centered in a mix that captures everything from the low end to twilight piano notes with balance and fullness. No wonder Turner wants his band-and it should be noted that Jamie Cook’s guitar, Nick O’Malley’s bass, and Matt Helders’ drums function as shading instruments-to escape to another planet.

The lyrics reference today’s overwhelming news cycle, as Turner alludes to one destructive headline after another while his voice becomes more obscured and distant. “American Sports,” in particular, twists dreary, psychedelic guitar tones around a hopeful piano melody. These tunes offer plenty of moments to admire. Because even though “One Point Perspective,” with its urgently tapped keyboard, and “American Sports,” with its old-fashioned digital circuitry, up the pace, they still feel like songs that should be played in one of Bond’s lavish albeit immoral hangouts.

By the time Turner answers his own “who you gonna call” question with “the martini police,” we don’t know if he’s talking about rock n’ roll, fame, or even imagining himself as some sort of over-the-hill lothario-a former James Bond-turned-deadbeat persona, if you will. With a slow, spoken-word beginning, the chorus-less song reads like a chapter from a Hubert Selby book, with stream-of-conscious references to pop-art, depression, and booze. “I just wanted to be one of the Strokes,” he sings to open the album on “Star Treatment,” in which a bachelor-pad piano marinates over a sputtering beat.

The personal and global intermix throughout Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino, making it never quite clear if Alex Turner is going deep into existentialism or portraying a character.

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