I’m just going to say it — I love The Strokes. There’s something about the boozy, lazy delivery of Julian Casablancas’s voice and pounding guitars that have always enraptured me. It was just a good, straight-up, badass American rock ‘n’ roll band. With its newest release, “Angles,” however, the band seems to be struggling to retain that same ferocity of its earlier releases.
After the band went on hiatus in 2007 due to conflicts within the band, Casablancas put out a solo album, “Phrazes for the Young.” It was, well, different. There were a few stand out tracks like the wonderfully bubbly “Out of the Blue” and the soulful carnival from hell “4 Chords of the Apocalypse” — but the album seemed to lack direction. The songs sounded good but they were synth-driven and much poppier than anything they had put out up to that point.
“Angles” seems to follow in that same vein. The songs are sparser and tend to rely more on studio tricks than the grungy power chords that propelled its last album “First Impressions of Earth.” This Strokes’ release seems to almost be a complete 180 from its last album; the album is lacking a blood boiling “Juicebox” or an anthemic “Heart in a Cage.” The anger in this release seems to be gone and with it, all the drama and danger that originally made The Strokes so interesting. The listener is left with a crooning Casablancas behind some steady beats and guitar scales.
It’s not necessarily a bad thing. The new album is by no means bad. Tracks like the single “Under the Cover of Darkness” and the exuberant “Two Kinds of Happiness” are catchy as hell, the guitar in “Happiness” is brilliant — it’s just not even close to the cathartic “Reptilia” or “Take it or Leave it.” And it’s that sentiment that I am nostalgic for. It may have something to do with the fact that I was in a band in high school who did a terrible rendition of “Reptilia” that we always played at the end of the set because I would blow out my voice singing it, because that was the only way to sing it. This album seems to be lacking that sort of raw intensity that made The Strokes so damn fun.
“Angles” is a solid album from start to finish and perhaps it will grow on me. But I long for the days of the guttural screaming and driving guitars that made me fall in love with The Strokes in the first place.
Listen to their entire album HERE and then either you can agree with me or tell me I’m just a mentally deficient hipster that only likes bands that no one has ever heard of. I don’t really mind just leave some love (hate) in the comments section below.
::::::::::
::::::::::
