The Singles Jukebox

Okay but could you roll the windows down a touch, please?

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Ramzi Awn: The Breeders have been my favorite band since I was twelve, and the first song that caught my ear was “Doe” from their first album. Right from the start, “Wait in the Car” delivers the promise of what you would expect from one of the era’s most revered bands. An assertive latter-day single, it blends together the old and the new, the Kim and the Kelley, and most importantly, the band’s signature sound with their incomparable debut. 
[10]

Alfred Soto: Rare is the moment when The Breeders aren’t the best band you can play, and with Kim Deal shouting “Good morning!” this new single gets down to business. In a way, “Wait in the Car” is an exercise in remembering how to write a Breeders song. 
[6]

Leonel Manzanares de la Rosa: If there’s a band that can pack a lot of attitude and meaning in simple, short musical gestures, that’s The Breeders. Proof of that is the way they grab us from the opening words “good morning” and that B-chord turns into a two-guitar assault. “Wait in the Car” has a lot of punch, and it comes in a terrific time. Short-but-powerful is exactly what we need out of guitar pop in 2017, so this comeback — their first single with the original line-up in 24 years — makes total sense. 
[6]

Claire Biddles: New tracks by getting-the-gang-back-together heritage rock acts are to be approached with caution, but The Breeders have always been a step apart from their peers, and “Wait in the Car” is delicious: I’m out of my seat as soon as Kim Deal opens with a yell of “GOOD MORNING!”, all bright knowing smiles, like she can’t wait to tell you what weird shit she’s been up to. The rest of the track is a surrealist mise-en-scene, all big guitars and meowing and enigmatic, triumphant cries of “Wait in the car! I’ve got…. BUSINESS!!” It’s a delight to hear everyone involved having so much fun, and in such an infectious way so as to not alienate the listener from the party.
[7]

Tim de Reuse: A fun-sized alt-rock time capsule — I enjoy the Breeders’ early output, but I don’t know that I wanted more of it, and you have to squint to see any reasons this couldn’t have been released decades ago. The main problem is that Kim Deal’s voice is the only vaguely interesting thing here, but her performance is somewhere between irritated, bored, and out of breath. Case in point: The lyric “I always struggle with the right words/meow meow meow-meow meow” could’ve been saved with enough sincerity, but she doesn’t even sound like she thinks it’s a good line herself.
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Micha Cavaseno: Never thought we’d ever get to the point that a Kim Deal song would sound as aimless and full of forced, cockamamie “dialog lyrics” as a mid-period Frank Black album, and yet here we are.
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Ryo Miyauchi: A standout memory of witnessing The Breeders perform Last Splash in full was Kim Deal excitedly telling the crowd she actually brought all of the original instruments used to record the classic, including the wind chimes that close out “Invisible Man.” That awkward yet warm eagerness to perhaps overshare is what flows from the band’s comeback single more than the inventiveness that put them on the map in the ’90s. A hook doesn’t make itself obvious. Though I like to imagine Deal would refer to her randomly meowing, telling us to “wait in the car,” or just that sincere “good morning” as a good-enough stand-in of what we might recognize as a hook.
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Rebecca A. Gowns: The Breeders used to sound like a cool older sister, yelling and singing in mysterious vaguely rebellious phrases. This new single sounds like a mom, commanding her misbehaving children to “sit in the car” through gritted teeth. This is not a reflection of the band, but a reflection of me. Now that I’m a mother, instead of seeing the potential for coolness everywhere, I can only see things in a continuum of parenthood. You’re either a parent or you’re dealing with your parents. This song, as written, seems to be more about the latter, the mother who wants to hold you down, the one whose very presence reminds you of shame/guilt/sin, and flexing your toes under the table, thinking of hopping in the car and speeding away as soon as you can figure out a plausible excuse. Kim Deal still speaks in phrases of vague rebellion, but I’m free to fill it in with my own interpretation: the older woman who shouts “good morning!” to wake up her lazy teenagers, and it comes out sarcastic, because it’s the third time she’s tried to wake them up and they’re still in bed on their laptops and not even dressed; the woman who has to keep repeating “Consider I…” when she’s on the phone with her mother, and it drives her crazy that she still needs her mom to validate her point of view; she’s constantly carrying tension in the pelvis and the shoulders, and wanting nothing more, deep down, than to peel out of the driveway and chase the stars.
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