The Strokes - Angles

Fri 18th Mar, 2011 in Music Reviews

New albums from The Strokes don’t happen every day. Indeed, it’s been some five years in between drinks for the New York City poster boys with new album Angles following on from their third disc, the tricky First Impressions Of Earth, in January 2006. Therefore, it’s no surprise that Angles has attained near-mythic status before its release, with expectations set to ‘second coming’ levels.

That was probably unavoidable considering that this is The Strokes after all – one of the galvanising forces behind the indie-rock revival of the early ‘00s – and also that a fourth LP from the band seemed poised to become a Detox or Chinese Democracy white whale of sorts as each member of the band (bar guitarist Nick Valensi ) embarked on solo endeavours in that five year stretch.

Whatever you thought of those solo outings – who could forget Nickel Eye? – once you’ve cycled through all of the 10 tracks on Angles you’ll recognise that the raft of side projects was ultimately beneficial for The Strokes’ development. No longer can The Strokes be painted as Julian Casablancas and co. with all the band members flexing their creative muscles and providing more input than ever before to shape the material on Angles.

There’s definitely a broader palette available to The Strokes on Angles and the band pick and choose when to dip into it casually like with the tropical embellishments of the otherwise vintage garage rock Machu Pichu or go all out revisionist with something like Call Me Back and its sparse, drowsy guitar plucks and xylo tinkles.

The balance which The Strokes strike between those two impulses is particularly impressive on Angles, with the band imbuing the familiar with fresh twists like Taken For A Fool which bolsters duelling guitars with precision-processed drumming from Fabrizio Moretti and Under Cover Of Darkness which bounces to new heights with some rare backing vocals from the band. Elsewhere something like Games stands out for its utter alien-ness with programmed electronic patterns replacing guitars and finale track Life Is Simple In The Moonlight morphs into an intriguing John Hughes style last-dance-at-prom gem with an enveloping chorus and the leftover synth sheen from Casablancas’ Phrazes For The Young LP.

While the beefed up treatment given to First Impressions Of Earth by producer David Kahne was ultimately top-heavy and out of character for The Strokes following their first two very compact albums, Angles never once feels forced. Yes, not all the turns of experimentation are as successful as each other with You’re So Right kind of becoming lost in its own broody angst and the acoustic flourishes that intersperse Games’ electronic waves come across as jarring, but The Strokes seem particularly at ease attempting new things here, happy to twist different knobs and prod their compositions into unexplored territories.

In fact, despite the reportedly difficult recording process there is a relaxed and upbeat attitude present throughout the record, as is apparent on highlight jam Gratisfaction that bursts forward with stadium rock drum thumps and punches of fuzzy guitar before the band nail their soft-rock Boston reference with a chanting all-in chorus made for AM radio frequencies.

As followers of the band are want to do, the merits of Angles will be discussed at length and rigorously compared to The Strokes’ previous releases. It’s not the flawless portrait of a band that Is This It was. It’s not as taut as Room On Fire. It lacks a uniting radio hit like Heart In A Cage from First Impressions Of Earth. Yet, with all its enthusiastic experimentation, Angles is perhaps the most interesting Strokes record to date.

Having well and truly moved beyond the confines of the garage and into a Manhattan loft with walls of new sounds at their disposal, Angles is the perfect summation of their first ten years on the scene and an indication of what is still to come from The Strokes.