Different Strokes return with songs for the new abnormal age
After seven years away from the studio, and a patchy decade of alternative projects, US band The Strokes are back with an album which has divided critics but demands to be heard.
Local
Don't miss out on the headlines from Local. Followed categories will be added to My News.
After seven years away from the studio, and a patchy decade of alternative projects, US five-piece band The Strokes are back with an album which has divided critics but demands to be heard.
Called, appropriately for the times, The New Abnormal it features their trademark intertwining guitar riffs and Julian Casablancas’ strong and insistent vocals, but the tracks are stretched out from the short and sweet driving songs they are famous for and the band is sounding more creative and cohesive than it has for a long time.
The nine songs are mainly reflective and Casablancas reminisces about friendships and romantic relationships past and present. One of the strongest tracks Ode To The Mets, which closes the album, harks back to the old days in New York where he and his bandmates – guitarists Nick Valensi and Albert Hammond Jr, bassist Nikolai Fraiture and drummer Fabrizio Moretti – all grew up. Hammond’s plaintive keyboard lick stays in the ear long after the outro.
In fact the whole album has a retro feel, referring to the music of the 1970s and ’80s – albeit with a contemporary sceptical edge – and parts of it sound strangely familiar.
CROON
In Eternal Summer, written against the backdrop of last year’s California wildfires, the chorus suddenly harks back to the prog rock of Pink Floyd and The Wall, while the band acknowledge that they have ripped off riffs from Billy Idol in the break-up song Bad Decisions.
There is a disco feel to Brooklyn Bridge to Chorus and Casablancas pulls off a commendable croon for the melancholy Not The Same Anymore. It starts off brightly with the catchy anti-authoritarian The Adults Are Talking and it’s worth remembering that they played at a rally for one-time Democrat hopeful Bernie Sanders. The album’s title also has a political overtone, being taken from a comment by California Governor Jerry Brown that the 2018 Malibu fires were “the new abnormal”.
Although writing for some of the songs started in 2016, the timing of the album’s release and the COVID-19 outbreak is coincidental. That said, when the time comes to look back on the past months of pandemic upheaval this album could indeed be the soundtrack for the new abnormal.
It is available at JB Hi-Fi for $19.99 (CD) and $54.99 (Vinyl) and at all the usual download sites.