jason stives reviews the hotly anticipated new album from The Strokes …
The first decade of the 21st century was, in many ways, a desperate time for identification in music. The changing digital landscape did no help for artist exposure unless you were one of the fortunate being pushed on a major label. Even worse, the first year of the 2000s was held back by a lack of decent rock music on a mainstream level, at least, until The Strokes came onto the scene.
It’s a bit hard to sit there and call The Strokes the saviors of rock music in this past decade. When Rolling Stone named their 2001 debut Is This It? the most culturally important album of the first 10 years of the new millennium, I couldn’t help but question expectations and hopes. But I won’t deny their existence as nothing more then pleasant and a perfect gem. There first two releases were by my standards great stripped rock records, and while named indie could easily be pure unadulterated garage rock. For me, 2003’s Room on Fire stands up on its feet with ’60s garage albums like The Sonics’ Here Come The Sonics and The Monks’ Black Monk Time.
But like all good things, there is a life span before it becomes stale, which means having to evolve for the sake of survival. Their third album, First Impressions Of Earth, wasn’t given a level playing field upon release in 2006 due to its more keyboards-laden sound, but it still sold. In the five years since then, the landscape has once again changed, and picturing The Strokes now as champions of the indie rock world when so many acts have come along that have mimicked them, where does originality stand for the ragged quintet?
For any cliché reasons, the answer lies in their first album in five years, Angles, named after the five-way partnership this album produced. A warning to those who hold the results in high demand, this is not the return of rock music and this is not the next Is This It? No, this is The Strokes, as we know them, but older, more open, and perfectly fitting with their peers both new and old.
Angles was never going to be what had been missing from music in the last half of the 2000s, but it sure is satisfying. The album’s opener, “Machu Picchu” is an electronic sway of sights and sounds, with Julian Casablanca’s famous crooner voice reverberated but clearly older. The lead single “Under Cover Of Darkness” is quite a return to form for the band in the same vein as “Last Night” or “12:51,” with Albert Hammond’s guitar dripped in anguish but giving off the most pleasing of notes.
From here, the album clearly resembles the more techno-based pop-rock tracks first glimpsed on First Impressions Of Earth, channeling greatly The Cars and Roxy Music. Tracks like “Call Me Back” and “Games” may sound outdated, hokey, but are easily compliment to a lack of stripped down rock tunes. While this is the first complete collaboration by all five members, the influence of Casablancas is still dominant and songs like “Gratisfaction” and “Two Kinds Of Happiness” could easily have been held over ideas from his 2010 solo effort Phrazes Of Young.
Lyrically, like they have on previous efforts, The Strokes mock detractors and skeptics of their sound and presence in current culture. “Life Is Simple In Moonlight” shows the band’s constant observation of their peers and followers as Casablancas croaks at those acting like things never changed. Ultimately, or at least without batting an eyelash, The Strokes have reappeared, not quite time captured in a bottle, but revitalized and ready to resume business as usual. They may not clear a path any further then they have made, but they show they are still ambitious if not a little behind the curve of standards.
