So much good music has been released over the past month or so, but I have been moving and without wifi so I haven't been able to talk about it. So what a better place to start than the one anticipated release that ended up being a massive disappointment! It's been six long years since the last record from the Strokes, 2020's The New Abnormal. That record was a shot in the arm for the band after over a decade of diminishing returns with each release. It drew more from Julien Casablancas' experimental tendencies that he previously had reserved for his side project, The Voidz. As a result, the record felt fresh and invigorating for the first time in a long while for The Strokes, and at this point I think it's fair to say it will go down as one of the defining indie rock records of the 2020s.
However, considering the groups inconsistency in terms of both quality and release schedule, there was no guaranty that we would: 1) get a follow-up any time soon and 2) it would live up to the bar set by The New Abnormal. Those fears were further compounded by the release of the third Voidz album in 2024, which was a ginormous step back from the first two records (which are actually better than the majority of what The Strokes released in the 2010s). The album felt more like a compilation of half-finished and half-arsed Julien Casablancas demos than an actual full-band album. I only ended up listing to it once because it was just that drab and tiresome, but from what I remember one of the biggest flaws with that record was Julien's pretty low effort vocals that were then slathered in autotune as some sort of artistic choice. That overuse of autotune turned what was a pretty forgettable album into one that was actively grating to listen to.
And then in comes Going Shopping, the lead single to this new Strokes record, and Julien's vocals are once again slathered in unnecessary autotune. The song at the core of it isn't half bad as well, which makes it even more frustrating! The song is a tight piece of new wave pop rock and has a catchy melody and some pretty fun lyrics from Julien, taking an absurdist angle on consumerism and FOMO mentality. The song has grown on me since it's release, but the autotune is completely unneeded for the song and does kneecap its potential. The following single, Falling Out of Love, really set the mood going into the album for me and many others. The song is this meandering 6-minute slow jam that goes nowhere and does nothing, and Julien's vocal performance is so low effort and the amount of autotune applied is egregious. It's definitely the worst song on the album and is a good shout for the worst song the band has ever released.
Considering Falling Out of Love, I went into the full album expecting the worst - something along the lines of that last Voidz record. I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn't as bad as I was expecting (but it's still not great), and the autotune is surprisingly not my major qualm with the record. It's still overused and adds very little to the tunes here, but its relatively minor compared to some of the other problems with the record. The main one is Julien's lyrics and vocals outside of the use of autotune. He's back to sounding like he doesn't give a shit again (a la Comedown Machine), barely making an effort to stay in tune. Lyrically and thematically, the record feels half baked and half formed, and outside of a vague theme of cynicism towards a technologically driven future, I can't really tell what it's about. And there's a couple of moments (that we will get to) that just seem so ill-conceived and out of touch.
Musically, most of the instrumentals are at least fine-to-decent, but the majority of the tracks lack any real direction or propulsion, and most run too long and run their ideas into the ground. They also jump around styles quite a bit and don't fit together in a cohesive way, resulting in an album that feels way longer than it actually is. I think the worst offence here is that even the best songs here feel like worse versions of ideas and riffs The Strokes have done before. The track Going to Babble On, for example, just sounds like a half formed copy of The Adults are Talking, with none of the dynamics or interplay that makes that track so fun to listen to. And Julien is doing exactly what the title suggests on top, just babbling on. It's fine and perfectly listenable, but really feels like a leftover from The New Abnormal.
The record opens up with Psycho Shit, which actually utilises the autotune quite well. The song is an eery and creepy intro track, and the autotune adds to the uneasy atmosphere. However at over 5 minutes it doesn't really go anywhere from this point beyond Julien's vocals becoming louder and more aggressive. I guess there's a bit of an arpeggiated guitar solo at the end, but that in itself ends before it really gets started. Dine N'Dash is a decent song on the record with its moody post-punk groove and a fairly clean vocal performance from Julien. However, as with much of the record, its hand is played by the half way point and the groove and melody are run into the ground for another two and a half minutes. Lonely in the Future is the best musically, with its jangly guitar and a nice key change during the chorus and a fuzzed out keyboard solo. But god Julien's lyrics are terrible. It's basically three minutes of him whinging about other artists who have supposedly 'copied' him and picking a fight with Anthony Fantano for *some* reason. It screams out of touch and chronically online. And its not like The Strokes are known from cribbing ideas and riffs from other songs are they?...
By the time the rear end of the record comes around, I've really lost interest. Liar's Remorse strips most of the instrumentation our to create quite a sparse sonic palette. But Julien's vocals are really droning and the weird combination of autotune and reverb just makes them come off way too loud for the mix and drown out the subtler instrumentation. The Fruits of Conquest is an odd funk rock tune but just meanders about for five minutes with little in the way of direction or structure. Much like Going to Babble On, it feels like a worse version of a New Abnormal song, this time being Why Are Sundays So Depressing. Tyrants of the Mellow Moon tries its best to be a moody and dramatic closer, but once again the autotune is pretty overdone and the tune at the core of it is pretty run of the mill and unspectacular. A pretty damp squib of a song to end on.
Reality Awaits is handily the worst Strokes album, its all over the place, and even its best songs would be some of the weakest on any other record in their discography. It's not as offensively bad as some fans have been making out, but it really isn't that good either. Apparently the majority of the album was recorded way back in 2022, and the fact that the band has sat on it for four years says a lot about how much belief they actually have in it. I have no idea why they didn't just scrap it and start again with a blank slate, because you can only polish a turd so much as the saying goes.
Top Tracks: Going Shopping
4/10
