Let’s skip all the expository fragments of The Strokes' history and swiftly veer away from the obvious compare/contrast.
Meet NYC resident Julian Casablancas. On Phrazes For The Young he has replaced all your expectations with synths straight out of 1984. Listen closely. Pop waves too polished to be considered prog echoing "Rio" by Duran Duran, "Borderline" by Madonna, and "Let’s Go Crazy" by Prince are everywhere, and with this palette of 80s synths a secretly danceable album bubbles throughout this genre-bender. And the nagging speculation of what the songs would sound like if guitars replaced the shiny textures, or some feedback and grime swayed instead of the forlorn tropical vibe glistening across 11th Dimension and Glass, is more of a senseless activity in this case; for solo albums are outlets to indulge musical urges suppressed by the group dynamic.
Take for example 4 Chords of the Apocalypse, it’s slow so of course it sounds really out of place. That sort of knee jerk reaction might be an obstacle for anyone expecting another Last Nite, because the track’s axis mundi is celebrating the despondency of Otis Redding and Solomon Burke era soul and not the dissonance and recklessness of CBGB. Or the following track, Ludlow St., beginning as an exotic interlude reminiscent of the Apocalypse Now Soundtrack (fit for Martin Sheen’s stagger down a dark hallway toward madness and Marlon Brando), abruptly turns into a country folk ditty taking place in Chinatown and the Bowry, with lyrics that rejoice the acceptance one finds at the bottom of the bottle when the rest of the world stabs with rejection. Yet even at its most formulaic instances inventive cascades of drum machine beats twisting with scampers of guitars display an album revealing more musical complexity after every listen.
In many cases, the album, dense and bloated, always changing and bouncing and moving quickly, slips across pop and soul spectrums within a few seconds, overlapping and folding decades into 8 songs that run just under 40 minutes. Between a catchy Spanish guitar refrain and a synth loop (that makes you wonder who came up with all the best hooks on the Strokes second album Room On Fire) the final track Tourist distinguishes his globetrotting efforts across pop and R&B, and right before the album climaxes with a flourish of brass horns Casablancas delivers, “Some will bet against you / Try even to prevent you / But not many can stop you man / If you got a perfect plan,” displaying the confidence gained from a journey that opened with lyrics of resounding uncertainty “Somewhere along the way, my hopefulness turned to sadness.”
3.5 stars
This article appears in Nov 4-10, 2009.