Send "The Strokes " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 The last time we saw the Strokes in a music video they were dead. In the visual for 2006's "You Only Live Once", the quintet wore all white while dark liquid filled the room, leaving them drowned and floating. And if that really had marked the end of the band, few would've been surprised. Their third album, First Impressions of Earth, had them limping, desperately trying to expand the signature sound that looked to be swallowing them up like so much black water. It didn't work. And the Strokes are too cool and too smart to become one of those bands that puts out a record every few years just so fans can sing the oldies back to them, right? So they went away-- to an array of lackluster side projects, to families, to anywhere but the Strokes.As late as November 2009, Julian Casablancas was non-committal on the subject of a fourth Strokes album. "We've been trying to do it for years," he said. "I'm always available and they know that but getting together is tough." Guitarist Nick Valensi went even further: "I'm not even sure we're going to make a fourth album at this point." But still, here we are with Angles, not a roaring comeback as much as a glorified spit-balling session. The album attempts to rebuild the band from the ground up. Whereas Casablancas had previously written nearly every part of the group's songs including guitar solos and basslines, he steps back on Angles, which features songs from other members. And this revised process is evident in the credits: "All Music Written and Arranged by the Strokes." Casablancas called the new way "Operation Make Everyone Satisfied," which sounds condescending enough. And while the more democratic move may seem generous, the singer threw his clout around by separating himself from the rest of the recording process and sending his vocals to the band via electronic files. And the album's oddly collaborative origins are evidenced in both its scatter-shot diversity and its lurching fragmentation. With its sprightly, dueling fret work and familiar, cascading chorus, first single "Under Cover of Darkness" hinted that the Strokes had come to terms with being the Strokes-- after dalliances with other styles and sounds, they seemed content with a revival in their own image. But, for better and (mostly) worse, that is not the case. Though this band was routinely slapped with claims of 1970s plagiarism upon their arrival, it's unlikely that many people have ever mistaken a Strokes song for one by Lou Reed or Television. So it's ironic that their mimicry can be uncanny on Angles. But traces of scummy CBGB punk are sometimes replaced with big-snare 1980s flash. "Two Kinds of Happiness" pilfers one-time tour mate Tom Petty for the palm-muted and hiccup-phrased verse before ramping things up in a whooshing vintage-U2 hook. And "Games" is another 80s throwback, utilizing crystalline synths and distant hand claps to help prove its dour and strained point about "living in an empty world." Opener "Machu Picchu" recalls "Down Under" dudes Men at Work. These are not the expected influences for a Strokes album....full text |
| Rollingstone |
| "Don't try to stop us/Get out of the way," Julian Casablancas sings with a snapping relish at the end of Angles, the Strokes' new album, in a song called "Life Is Simple in the Moonlight." That's a rich sign-off for five guys with peculiar ideas about momentum. The New York band's last record, the ambitious and wobbly First Impressions of Earth, came out five years ago. Angles took nearly two years to write and record, including one mostly scrapped set of sessions. The Strokes' body of studio work over a decade on four LPs, not including the solo projects: 46 songs. "I'm putting your patience to the test," Casablancas sings in the first song here, "Machu Picchu." No shit. Gallery: The Strokes and More Hot Live Shots But this is what comes from waiting: 10 songs built mostly from basic rock-combo parts, charged and scarred with an exacting attention to musically and romantically turbulent detail. With its sudden-U-turn songwriting and curt execution, Angles is the best album that Casablancas, guitarists Nick Valensi and Albert Hammond Jr., bassist Nikolai Fraiture and drummer Fabrizio Moretti have made since 2001's Is This It, the cannonball that inaugurated the modern-garage era. The Return of the Strokes: Inside the Fractious Sessions for Their Fourth Album Angles is also the Strokes' first true giant step forward from that record. They tighten the striving that was spread thin across First Impressions with proven martial jangle: Fraiture and Moretti's stoic grip on the beat; robotic-Yardbirds crossfires of crispy-fuzz and brittle-treble guitars. "Machu Picchu" is a sly union of cocky menace — a bony city-reggae gait, wet with echo — and the kind of rapid-strum fury that came with the choruses on early Who singles. In "Two Kinds of Happiness," a motor-pop groove that recalls the smooth futurist lure of the Cars goes to exciting pieces: Casablancas' dry, ragged howl hanging over a tense, stuttering rhythm and a field of stabbing-dagger guitars....full text |
| Contactmusic |
| We're little over thirty-five minutes into 'Angles' when Julian Casablancas urges the battle cry 'Don't try to stop us, get out of the way!' A matter of seconds later, The Strokes first record in over five years is over. Never ones to outstay their welcome, the story of The Strokes can be summed up in many different ways depending which side of the fence you wish to sit on. Heralded as the saviours of guitar music and widely purported to have made the best debut album of the decade by certain commentators, those of a more cynical nature would put their unparalleled success down to simply being in the right place at the right time. Certainly anyone wishing to remember as far back as the summer of 2001 would struggle to get away from the fact it was a bleak period for music indeed, far worse than the present if truth be known. The alternative and independent scenes were awash with an unpalatable mix of nu metal and acoustic muso bores led by the likes of Limp Bizkit and Travis, so to call the arrival of five unkempt yet remarkably good looking New Yorkers playing edgily radio friendly punk a breath of fresh air would be an understatement of vast proportions. In all honesty, this scribe didn't care that much for 'Is This It' at the time and listening to the record in 2011 its fair to say it hasn't aged particularly well. Nevertheless, its existence undoubtedly created a sea change both in the way bands previously brought up on a diet of bad metal altered their game plans completely causing the music industry's A&R fraternity to widen their search in terms of demographic and aesthetic for the post-millennial guitar-wielding breed. If anything, their two subsequent long players 'Room On Fire' and 'First Impressions Of Earth' highlighted a band itching to develop and experiment, even if both critical and commercial nonchalance suggested their fanbase thought otherwise. Here then, with their fourth album finally complete, it's been something of a long-winded process for a record guitarist Albert Hammond Junior describes as 'like we were starting from scratch'. However inactive as a band The Strokes may have been, the interim period between 'First Impressions.' and 'Angles' has seen Hammond, Casablancas, bassist Nikolai Fraiture and drummer Fabrizio Moretti release a total of five albums between them, while fellow guitarist Nick Valensi's contributions can be heard on various projects ranging from Devendra Banhart's 'Smokey Rolls Down' to Moretti's own Little Joy creation besides....full text |
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