Cars Can Be Blue “Monster” video debuts at SPIN

Cars Can Be Blue might be best known for their foul-mouthed, anti-folk 2005 oddity “The Dirty Song.” The Athens, Georgia-based three-piece returned this week with their third album, Trace the Tension, on HHBTM, but they still know how to match unsettling lyrics with scrappy, Beat Happening-descended indie pop. “Monster” describes the closet-lurking creature of its title, and the skeleton-filled black-and-white video emphasizes that the wry track would be a fine Halloween-party playlist inclusion. Beware, this monster will eat your brains — and then smoke a cigarette.