When The Strokes released their first studio album “Is This It” back in 2001, I don’t think many would have predicted where they have ended up today. This band seemed on top of the world with enormous hype and actually living up to it, as “Is This It” was named the best rock album of the past decade by NME. After mediocre reviews from critics on the band’s third album “First Impressions of Earth”, which is very underrated in my opinion, the Strokes went on a 5 year hiatus with most members working on side projects.
People were fearing the day would never come but In March 2011, The fourth Strokes album, “Anlges“, was to be released, but with a twist. According to all members in the band, it was written and recorded in a very democratic way, every band member brought in parts they had written, unlike past records where frontman Julian Casablancas wrote most of the material. Casablancas actually wasn’t even present in the studio for a lot of the “Angles” recording sessions. Leading up to the album release, interviews surfaced that displayed angst within the Strokes, with Casablancas even quoted as saying “I feel like if they could, would stab me to get to the top… we should have called the album Frenemies”. In addition to this, it also became known that the Strokes ended up firing their producer Joe Chicarelli and self-produced “Angles” themselves. With all this news, all of a sudden, it sounded as though maybe “Angles” would mark the end for the Strokes, especially if the record simply wasn’t good, but the Strokes pulled it off again.
The ten song album, although short, has such a wide range of sound, ranging from the 80′s sounding “Two Kinds of Happiness” to the Thin Lizzy sounding “Gratisfaction” to the futuristic sounding “Games“. As for all you Strokes fans who love the harder and faster songs by the band(I know I do), the album hasn’t forgotten about you. “Metabolism” and “You’re so Right” are probably some of the darkest Strokes to date while having a couple of the Strokes best guitar solos. The album has been more well received by critics than the band’s last album and singles “Undercover of Darkness“, a song about joining the military, and “Taken For a Fool” have been getting a decent amount of radio play due to their classic Strokes sound. While this whole album is great, the high point may very well be the last song on the album “Life Is Simple In The Moonlight“. While it isn’t nearly as catchy as the singles off “Angles”, this song has a very surreal and dreamy feel and is perfect to end this eclectic sounding album.
For all the people still worrying about the future of the Strokes, the good news is that they’ve already started writing their fifth studio album and it looks like a full North American tour could be coming up this fall. If the idea that the members of the Strokes don’t get along anymore is true, than I’m very impressed that they could pull of such an amazing album in “Angles” and I hope at the very least, that the Strokes can just get along enough to keep making albums, and if their next album turns out like “Angles”, I’ll have no complaints.
The Strokes – Two Kinds Of Happiness
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The Strokes – Taken For A Fool
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The Stokes – Life Is Simple In The Moonlight
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THE BONUS TRACK: An underrated song from the Strokes underrated third album “First Impressions of Earth” : “Electricityscape”
The Strokes – Electricityscape
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One Comment
The Strokes new album is awesome. I love their song “Taken for a Fool.” The video is so great. http://www.vevo.com/watch/the-strokes/taken-for-a-fool/USRV81100040