The Strokes:Angles

8.1 / 10 dropps

Julian Casablancas, Nick Valensi, Albert Hammond, Jr., Nikolai Fraiture, and Fabrizio Moretti: if you don’t already own a CD or record with these names on it, then you’re missing out on your fair share of cultural gold. The Strokes are not hailed as the founding fathers of this genre or that scene, but rather “saviors of rock n’ roll,” which means they’ve got their work cut out for them in their NYC quarters. Emerging out of the late 90s, the Strokes commandeered the raw, nonchalant garage-indie mien that gnawed into the 21st century. While Chumbawamba was morphing from an anarcho-punk band into a dance-pop one-hit wonder and President Clinton was placating impeachment backlash, the Strokes were forming their incorrigible band of distortion-happy mavericks.

From 2001 to 2006, the Strokes aptly riffed their way through three reputable albums, though their musical momentum took a dive for a while as four out of the five members turned their attentions to side projects. To put things into perspective, the Strokes have been on a five-year hiatus, the same amount of time they spent releasing and touring for Is This It, Room on Fire, and First Impressions of Earth. So what could these Cristal-privileged rockers have to offer on the long-awaited Angles? Apparently the group has been marinating in their catchy punk-strumming and reggae upstrokes, Moretti’s 4/4 dance-number percussion, Fraiture’s perfectly placed drum-n-bass duets, and Julian’s quintessential half-perky-half-gloomy vocal presence. When you give Angles a first listen, you’re going to notice that it’s a bit more produced even than First Impressions, however you’ll want to revisit all of the dynamics that give the Strokes their sui generis character. There are also some 80s-wave experiments that appear on tracks like “You’re So Right” and “Games” that might disgruntle old ears and attract new ones. The municipal buzz about Angles is that it is The Strokes silver medal to their gold medal Is This It.

In the Angles album opener, “Machu Picchu,” the listener is greeted with Casablancas’ vocals that potentially touch on his travels during their hiatus: “I’m putting your patience to the test…I’m trying to find / a mountain I can climb.” The second song, “Under Cover of Darkness,” was released as the band’s first single off the album. The musical arrangement is as classically dressed as the guys are in the song’s music video. The video features the band playing their respective instruments on a red-carpeted staircase and a black-and-white blank stage as Casablancas flutters through each scene paying no attention, except to the camera, mouthing lyrics such as, “I’ve been all around this town/Everyone’s singing the same song for ten years/And they sacrifice their lives/In their land of all closed eyes.” By the time you get to the middle of the album you’ll know if you like it or not, and this is especially true for their less flexible fan base. Dabbling with darker, synth-based domains in songs like “You’re So Right” displays the Strokes’ loose-fitting approach to their progressive sound. “Taken For A Fool” acts as a belt on the album, tightening back up the Strokes’ “Last Nite” vibe with lick-based verses and where Fraiture walks the bass easier than Cesar Millian could walk a dog. Even though “Taken For A Fool” and other songs revisit the roots of their style, the latter half of the album sidesteps their freshman and sophomore keepsake as “Games” is quasi-trance, “Metabolism” has First Impressions’ dark complexity, and “Life is Simple in the Moonlight” is a compromise of old and new cheerleaders. There is a certain sense of crystallization in Angles that listeners want to be able to see through. As the Strokes’ newly formed sonic compounds are finally being exposed to oxygen and heat – old money and new blood – they finally found a hybrid between their halcyon days and their days still to come.

-Zach Frimmel