The New Abnormal

AlbumApr 10 / 20209 songs, 45m 11s
Indie Rock
Popular

A general observation: You don’t go see Rick Rubin at Shangri-La if you’re just going to fuck around. For their sixth LP, The Strokes turn to the Mage of Malibu to produce their most focused collection of songs since 2003’s *Room on Fire*—the very beginning of a period marked by discord, disinterest, and addiction. Only their fourth record since, *The New Abnormal* finds the fivesome sounding fully engaged and totally revitalized, offering glimpses of themselves as we first came to know them at the turn of the millennium—young saviors of rock, if not its last true stars—while also providing the sort of perspective and even grace that comes with age. “Bad Decisions” is at turns riffy and elegiac, Julian Casablancas’ corkscrewing chorus melody a close enough relative to 1981’s “Dancing With Myself” that Billy Idol and Tony James are credited as songwriters. Though not as immediate, “Not the Same Anymore” is equally toothsome, a heart-stopping soul number that manages to capture feelings of both triumph and deep regret, with Casablancas opening himself up and delivering what might be his finest vocal performance to date. “I was afraid,” he sings, amid a weave of cresting guitars. “I fucked up/I couldn’t change/It’s too late.” For a band that forged an entire mythology around appearing as though they couldn’t be bothered, this is an exciting development. It’s cool to care, too.

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5.7 / 10

The NYC band’s first album in seven years is sluggish and slight, rendering their signature sound as background music.

8 / 10

8 / 10

No one does it quite like The Strokes, and they prove why on their sixth outing

The Strokes have always kept their feelings at arm’s length, but there are traces of deeper introspection on their sixth album

They couldn’t be more New York if they arrived inside a giant hot dog bun, but The Strokes became big in the UK first and have subsequently seemed cursed to be an American version of late-period Oasis: together grudgingly, forever failing to match a lightning early spell when they were untouchable.

6.2 / 10

Every time The Strokes tap into their old power, they get distracted by a shiny but fruitless new direction.

The Strokes heart 1980s on 'The New Abnormal' album.

The Strokes seem to have finally remembered exactly how magical they can be.

Band mark their return on this album stacked with rolling, streetwise grooves, boldly graffitied onto the chipped paintwork of Eighties New York City

Though the Strokes have cultivated a cooler-than-cool reputation over the years, at least once on every album they reveal the melancholy underneath the facade.

6 / 10

The New Abnormal is an apt descriptor for where the Strokes stand at this point in their career. The band has officially been in this curren...

The Strokes haven’t released an album in seven years.

8.0 / 10

The Strokes will always have a complicated legacy. They came out of the gates with the single defining statement in 2000s guitar rock, and in the nearly 20 years since everything they have done has been compared to Is This It.

8 / 10

The sixth record from The Strokes follows a period where each member spent time on other projects. But seven years on from 2013’s ‘Comedown

Julian Casablancas is back on passive-aggressive form on an album of all-out pop and mid-paced fillers

5 / 10

The Strokes haven't been the band who made Is This It for two decades, but they'll really have to try hard to shake off the diehards

5 / 10

The Strokes' frontman Julian Casablancas wants you to know that he's interested in authenticity.

8.5 / 10

The New Abnormal by The Strokes, album review by Leslie Chu. The band's sixth full-length release comes out on April 10th via Cult/RCA Records

The irascible rockers present a united front again to focus on taut, driven songs with catchy riffs

60 %

Album Reviews: The Strokes - The New Abnormal

Laura Marling arrived as a particularly precocious talent, sending ripples through Britain’s nu-folk scene as a teenage troubadour, the darling of Mumford & Sons and Noah and the Whale.

New York rock saviours swagger into middle-age

7 / 10