Artist: The Strokes
Album: Angles
Label: RCA
Release: March 18
Grade: A-
After a five-year-long hiatus that was shrouded in mystery save for disquieting reports of tensions among its members, the New York City rockers are back with 10 new tracks, collectively titled Angles.
Angles will inevitably raise some eyebrows. Though each of the previous three albums are by no means selfsame, Angles plunges the listener into an acutely reinvented Strokes. The band has returned, bearing a sound that detaches itself from the umbrella covering the previous albums.
However, as fresh as it is, Angles also takes on an unsettling sense of scatter and fragmentation with its abrupt mood changes and stylistic shifts. Its trademark hip '70s rock ‘n' roll strut is noticeably diminished, with songs that are less gritty, less groovy, but discernibly more collaborative and diverse.
Vocalist Julian Casablancas branches out from his usual-filtered crooning, while guitarists Albert Hammond Jr. and Nick Valensi toy with riffs that alternate between familiar Strokes and saturnine futuristic '80s that would have had no place in a Strokes album 10 years ago.
These seemingly minor changes create a vastly different and distinct sound, also influenced in part by frontman Casablancas' ebbing clout over the band and the absence of a professional producer.
With its bubbly and upbeat guitar riffs and addictive tempo, it's apparent why the second track on the album, "Under Cover of Darkness," was selected to be released as a single. But while "Under Cover of Darkness" is merely an unobtrusive, admittedly catchier number in the same vein as the Strokes' earlier work, its successor, "Two Kinds of Happiness," is something new.
Highly reminiscent of '80s power pop, with its muted power chords and metallic-synth drums, it presents a motif that makes a second appearance in "Games." The album ends with "Life is Simple in the Moonlight," a melancholy wailer that concludes with a line exemplifying the band's drive.
"Don't try to stop us/ Get out of the way," sings Casablancas.
Regardless of its debated comparability with the Strokes' earlier sound, it's undeniable that the album brings with it a new level of innovation and imagination, and because of this, Angles asserts itself as an album that deserves multiple listens.
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