ALBERT HAMMOND JR. AND NICK VALENSI
(THE STROKES) A POTENT PAIRING THAT LAUNCHED A THOUSAND COPYCAT BANDS.
TWENTY YEARS HAVE passed since the Strokes released their debut, This Is It, so it’s easy to forget the album’s impact on alternative rock and guitar tone. As the Strokes’ guitar tandem, Albert Hammond Jr. and Nick Valensi blur the lines between rhythm and lead with their angular playing and twin single-note lines. Valensi has favored hollowbody electrics like the Epiphone Riviera, while Hammond prefers his 1985 ’70s-reissue Fender Stratocaster in Olympic White. These went into a minimalist setup involving Fender DeVille combos, played loud with a little breakup. Played without accompaniment, such brightness would be pure ice pick, but as a complement to Julian Casablancas’s slightly nasal, kinda over it vocal delivery, it has proven exquisite. At once they were referencing the treble-forward jangle of classic American indie and garage rock, and yet they sounded so fresh, proving that it is hard to sound stale when you put so much treble in your guitar sound.
RECOMMENDED TRACK “THE ADULTS ARE TALKING” (THE NEW ABNORMAL)