Different Strokes but still on song
They were a Noughties hit — now they’re back with a new vibe
THE STROKES: The New Abnormal (Columbia) Verdict: Back in the New York groove ★★★✩✩ LAURA MARLING: Song For Our Daughter (Chrysalis) Verdict: Brilliantly crafted folk-pop ★★★★✩
When The Strokes thundered their way out of new York City’s indie clubs in the late 1990s, they blazed a trail for a new generation of guitar groups, kicking the door open for The Killers, Franz Ferdinand, Vampire Weekend and countless others.
Five impossibly cool rock stars in just-so haircuts and tight jeans, they launched the postBritpop era; and their 2001 debut, Is This It, crops up repeatedly on classic albums lists.
‘I just wanted to be one of The Strokes,’ sang Alex Turner, of the Arctic Monkeys, on 2018’s Star Treatment.
With guitar music now out of fashion and the prospect of packed gigs in tiny venues feeling like something from a different age, The Strokes have chosen a testing time to return.
They’ve endured mixed fortunes since their heyday, too, with long sabbaticals punctuated by underwhelming studio comebacks, internal squabbles and solo projects.
But there’s a renewed sense of purpose to their first LP in seven years and sixth overall. Built around the axis of Julian Casablancas’s languid vocals and the elliptical but punchy guitars of Albert hammond Jr. and nick Valensi, The new Abnormal has plenty to recommend it.
Some credit should go to producer Rick Rubin. With all five original Strokes on board in his Malibu studio, he appears to have reminded the band what was so exciting about them in the first place. They will never be quite as essential to music as they were in 2001, but it feels good to have them back.
The best songs mine a familiar seam. Bad Decisions incorporates a riff from Generation X’s post-punk standard Dancing With Myself and acknowledges composers Billy Idol and Tony James in the credits. not The Same Anymore brings the sound of The Velvet Underground and Television subtly up to date.
Brooklyn Bridge To Chorus employs more of a disco edge, a classic Strokes trait, as Casablancas ponders the fate of ‘the 1980s bands’ who remain a key influence. There’s also a retro flavour to the sleeve — a 1981 painting by late American street artist JeanMichel Basquiat.
DeSPITe
advance talk of The new Abnormal being a political record, there’s nothing particularly partisan here.
If anything, Casablancas has adopted a more introspective tone in his lyrics, with The Adults Are Talking and Selfless characterised by a sense of mellow yearning: ‘Please don’t be long, I want you now,’ he sings on the latter.
The occasional missteps are glaring. eternal Summer, sung in a sluggish falsetto, and electronic ballad At The Door are low points. But this is a comeback that plays confidently to enduring strengths in its blend of garage-rock and angular dance rhythms.
ThIS week’s other big release was going to be Lady Gaga’s sixth album Chromatica, but the singer has put her hotly anticipated record on hold, bringing into focus the predicament facing artists in light of coronavirus.
Gaga says it ‘didn’t feel right’ to release it in the current climate and is instead curating a livestreamed TV concert on April 18 to raise funds for health workers.
Other artists have taken an opposing view. Dua Lipa deliberated before bringing her feel-good album Future nostalgia forward by a week. And singer-songwriter Laura Marling announced last Sunday that she, too, was rushreleasing her seventh album, originally due later this year. ‘I saw no reason to hold back on something that might, at the very least, entertain and, at its best, provide some sense of union,’ she says.
Marling, 30, ( right) has put together an impressive body of work since cutting her teeth on the West London folk-pop scene that also spawned Mumford & Sons. Once refused access to one of her own gigs for being underage, she has grown from a callow teen into a mature performer — able to embrace stripped-down pop, rock and country. She describes Song For Our Daughter as a conscious step away from confessional songwriting. The child in the title is fictional, but the notion of this being a less personal record is relative. Marling recently returned to the UK, after living in LA, and made the album in the basement of her London home.
her lush songs, augmented by acoustic guitar, subtle synths and Rob Moose’s chamber strings, are meticulously crafted. She admits that this album was inspired by listening to Paul McCartney’s solo work. It is a telling homage.