Album Review: The Strokes - The New Abnormal
Twenty years: an uncomfortable amount of time to contemplate passing under any circumstance, practically an eternity with respect to pop music, and (roughly) the span separating The Strokes’ debut album from their newest record. Back in 2001, rock music was enjoying a renaissance in the form of a flood of indie acts who were growing to encompass a staggering portion of both the mainstream conversation and its corresponding counterculture. Is This It was merely another instant classic on the ever-growing list showcasing the genre’s dominance, a concise odyssey of fuzzy, punk-influenced riffs and Julian Casablancas’ emotive lyrics all drowned in a muddy, distorted mix that only added to the group’s youthful charm. Despite the album’s proximity to 9/11 necessitating a delayed release on CD in America in order to remove New York City Cops from the tracklist, The Strokes would soon prove to outshine their peers in terms of commercial success, and lay claim to a substantial fragment of the musical zeitgeist. Even neutered by the eternal American victim complex (it is a tragedy that the best song on the album happened to have a chorus that goes “New York City cops, they ain’t too smart”), the immediate impact of Is This It on the music world soon became inescapable.
But the river of time flows endlessly on; as much as America refuses to get over September 11, 2001, they seem to have long forgotten The Strokes, who have been unable to secure any meaningful portion of the cultural conversation since their admittedly stellar sophomore album. Unfortunately, 2003’s Room on Fire seemed to mark the last time the group was able to capture a novel sound, thereafter seen more and more as a scapegoat for their role in rock music’s over-saturation and subsequent decline in relevancy. Their newest record is far from a bold reinvention of their craft (indeed, the band’s sound has never been this imitative), yet The New Abnormal somehow is able to find its niche anyway, the type of modern rock record that inspires such raw exuberance it becomes far too easy to overlook its flaws. Sure, part of that enjoyment is no doubt owed to just hearing The Strokes sound good again, but these days great rock records are often in short supply, and a healthy nostalgia is appreciated whenever it comes along.
To call The New Abnormal derivative is less an insult than a necessity; while The Strokes have always been partly defined by a healthy deference to Lou Reed and the forefathers of punk music, two decades removed from the innovation of Is This It and the band’s influences lurk closer than ever in the forefront of their sound. The most novel change separating this record from the punk rockers of yore is its track lengths: despite only running a modest 45 minutes, The New Abnormal is loaded with extended and indulgent ballads (Selfless, the briefest cut here, is a mere twenty seconds shorter that the most protracted song on Is This It). Gone are the succinct, punchy bursts of creative rebellion that defined their debut, a time-honored rock tradition one will sorely miss when trudging through the six minutes of Eternal Summer or Not The Same Anymore. On the other hand, At The Door and its simple yet eerie synth stabs makes an effective partner for Casablancas’ emphatic pessimism (“I can’t escape it/I’m never gonna make it out of this in time”), amassing tension greedily for much of the track’s considerable length.
Longtime fans of The Strokes are no doubt tearing into the instrumentals and mastering of The New Abnormal as an affront to the band’s sacred past, even if the cleaner mix is, in many ways, a much better fit for the modern listener’s palate. The record’s production is entirely masterminded by hip hop veteran and Def Jam pioneer Rick Rubin; the only thing more surprising than his presence on a Strokes album is the fact that he doesn’t fuck it up as he has most of his musical endeavors in the past decade. Electronic instruments battle with old-school rock riffs all over the album for control of its direction, never quiet sounding at home with each other yet combining in an uneasy truce in many of the record’s catchier moments. The subdued melody on The Adults Are Talking that first captures the listener’s attention, the sleek guitar line that dominates Why Are Sundays So Depressing, the duet of bass and electronics buried within the refrain on Eternal Summer; though these high points universally sound a tad too sterile, they still offer more than enough energy to get the band’s point across.
The most obvious improvement present here is in Julian Casablancas’ singing, even if he was far from the only 2000s indie rocker whose amateurish vocals endeared themselves to listeners somewhere between the fiftieth and hundredth re-listens. The hooks of songs like Soma and Someday and Last Nite may be forever seared into the heads of far too many veteran indieheads, but The New Abnormal can still boast proudly of Selfless, a synthetic ballad that takes Casablancas’ vocal talents to a whole other level. As various string melodies intone from different aural dimensions, Julian’s voice alternates between a delicate croon (“Lay your hand across my face/Time we lost, that’s all my fault) and emotive bursts of impassioned furor: “How did this fit into your story?/Why’d you let them judge your body?”. The falsetto he employs on the chorus when intoning “But I will love for you” still steals the show, however; a heavenly declaration just as memorable as anything off of Is This It, and significantly more impressive from a vocal perspective.
‘Memorable’ is perhaps an oddly fitting descriptor of The Strokes’ music, an unlikely heritage that The New Abnormal is surprisingly adept at employing in its best moments. Even among a field comprising some of the most talented rock bands of their generation, the group was able to carve out a legacy for themselves that endures to this day, largely through the sheer volume of unforgettable hooks and genre-defining melodies strewn about Is This It. That ingenuity can still be heard here: in the ever-shifting melodies of Bad Decisions, in Julian Casablancas’ pained shouts on the chorus of Eternal Summer, and in so many more hidden idiosyncrasies that often show their face for only the briefest instant. The longer tracks routinely fail to justify their lengths, and it is truly a shame this loss of focus too often ends what begins as an explosive outburst of passion with a pitiful whimper. Nevertheless, though many fans of The Strokes will continue to let perfect be the enemy of good, any band that can still write something as powerful as Selfless or as euphoric as Brooklyn Bridge To Chorus is one worth listening to.
8/10
Favourite Tracks: Selfless, Brooklyn Bridge To Chorus, At The Door