The Best Thing I Heard this Week--The Strokes

As a change of pace one morning before the dredge to work, I put on The Strokes’ Angles. This might be the best album I hear this year. Seriously. Slept on, most likely because of a lackluster effort last time out (First Impressions of Earth) that saw the band seemingly trying too hard to create something different from their first two records (the equally brilliant Is This It? and Room on Fire). Angles is a warning shot--wake up, The Strokes are not done, they are in their fucking prime.

Perhaps the most impressive thing about this album (other than, you know, how fucking fun it is) is that The Strokes did what few bands ever do--come back from the aforementioned lackluster effort that was First Impressions of Earth. Like many others, I would imagine, I wrote them off after that record. Hell, they may have even wrote themselves off. Band members went off and recorded solo projects, to mixed results. When I heard Angles was forthcoming, I wondered if it would be tossed off, the efforts of a band that already spent its great ideas years ago and have been struggling to replicate that magic. Instead, we got a record that stands up to if not betters their first two.

I wanted to write more about the opening tack, “Macchu Picchu,” but I can’t say it any better than it was said here at Cokemachineglow. Instead I want to focus on “Taken for a Fool” for a moment. It’s hard to say exactly what Casablancas is describing here--I’m assuming the attempted end of a relationship and the reminiscing of the beginning that always accompanies it (“Sister, it feels like just yesterday / Sister, Don’t you forget my number, on the door / You’ve got something and it’s so good to see / Something wonderful that I could not be”). Which is well done, but has certainly be done before. Instead, the lovely piece is this: “And I don’t need anyone with me right now / Monday Tuesday is my weekend.” Oh man. It’s so simple yet emotionally wrought. He has brilliantly and laconically described (what I suppose is) his lifestyle, but the couplet could also describe the situation in the song, and that of a life unraveling.

The other eight tracks, which I’ll gloss over for the sake of length and preservation of my Sunday night, are good but perhaps lack the utter brilliance of “Macchu Picchu” and “Taken for a Fool.” The only one I would avoid is “You’re So Right,” which sounds like Amnesiac-era Radiohead but not as well done. “Gratisfaction” is probably the closest The Strokes will ever get to southern rock--the first thing I thought of when I heard it was “The Boys are Back in Town.” I mean that as a compliment. “Life is Simple in the Moonlight” is a fine closer, as the guitars seem to lie a little lower in the mix, letting Casablancas get his point across in a fashion that’s quite a bit different from the rest of the album, almost lulling you to sleep before the final lines: “Don’t try to stop us / Don’t try to stop us / Don’t try to stop us / get out of the way.”

Maybe Angles was dismissed too quickly because of reports that singer Julian Casablancas decided to record his vocals separately from the rest of the band. Not that we should care--are we really so worried about how the sausage is made that we’re willing to ignore a great album because these guys aren’t best friends? And even if that is a legitimate concern (for surely it would make a better story if they were), shouldn't that worry be assuaged by the fact that they’re already back in studio working on their next record? I’m guessing the Strokes know better than we do that they’re in their creative primes, set to create something with the energy and brilliance they’ve exuded for most of their careers.

Angles was the best thing I heard this week.