At their New Year’s Eve show in Brooklyn, Strokes frontman, Julian Casablancas, delivered the news of their new album.
“The 2010s, whatever the fuck they’re called, we took ‘em off,” said Casablancas at the show, explaining the large gap between albums.
It certainly was a large gap. After seven years of nothing, The Strokes released “The New Abnormal” on April 10. The unceremonious and natural style of the band feels refined and tight in their new album. Julian Casablancas’s lyrics seem to blend perfectly with the instrumentals, making it hard to differentiate between the two at times.
Casablanca’s relaxed lyrics help calm and soothe a troubled world. The casual, half-spoken lyric, “Drums please Fab” in “Ode to the Mets” cues the beginning of the drums, and the informal, “Can we switch to the chorus right now” in “Brooklyn Bridge to Chorus” introduces the chorus.
Amanda Petrusich of The New Yorker puts it best by saying, “The Strokes’ music makes everything feel less high-stakes. This might be why it sounds excellent in an emergency.”
Though it isn’t all quips, recurring themes throughout the album piece together portraits of a child struggling to get attention from his parents and doors separating people. The song “Why Are Sundays So Depressing” hits particularly hard in a world where everyday feels like Sunday.
In a song, the band also recognizes that they are “Not The Same Anymore.” 20 years of being The Strokes has brought most of the band members into their 40s. With a seven year break between “The New Abnormal” and the “Comedown Machine” (or four years since the EP “Future Present Past”), the band has spent a considerable amount of time out of the studio. They joke about coming back in the outro to “The Adults are Talking,” saying, “So let’s go back to the old key, old tempo, everything.”
They may have been gone for a long time, but they have not degraded at all. They are still The Strokes, and they can still put out music that defines a genre. Times may be tough, everyday might be Sunday and we may all be separated by doors, but at least we have The Strokes.
