Strokes- Angles (2011)

An article in the upcoming issue of Rolling Stone features some new information about the Strokes' forthcoming album, now with a confirmed release date of March 22 via RCA. The album is tentatively titled Angles, and the first single from the ten-song LP will most likely be "Undercover of Darkness".

Strokes guitarist Albert Hammond Jr. tells Rolling Stone that the album title represents "what the record sounds like. It comes from five different people," meaning that all of the members of the band contributed to the songwriting process. Other song titles mentioned include "Life Is Simple", "Taken for a Fool", "Call Me Back", "Radio Minor Madness", and "Machu Picchu", which Rolling Stone describes as "a rough wall of jangle over a hip-hop grind, as if the Strokes are cutting a Jay-Z track via the Rolling Stones' Aftermath."

The majority of the album was recorded at Hammond's studio in upstate New York, following scrapped sessions with producer Joe Chiccarelli (White Stripes, the Shins). "Life Is Simple" is the sole surviving song from the Chiccarelli sessions.

The band has plans to tour later this year, but Hammond emphasizes to Rolling Stone that "we want to come back strong but slowly, so we can grow live and also make new music. We want to release albums quicker."

"Call Me Back"

"No, really, everyone who bought that first album. Please. Anyone?"

*crickets*

i wonder if it will feature angular guitars

"Life Is Simple"

But hard to...I'll stop.

The only dude I trust to come up with a great hook is Hammond, but I say that and think in the back of my head how is solo album was such absolute shit. Casablanca's was merely, barely OK. I'm not sure what's going on with these dudes... they're all hooked out.

well I'M EXCITED

ten-song LP

hopefully around 30 minutes and tolerable

Thing is, when Is This It came out and all the press heralded the album as saving rock and roll... what actually changed?

who cares

need more songs about pokemons tbh

I'm looking forward to hearing this, looks like I'm the only one around here though. I actually liked the last one, it was kind of fun digging the gems out of the pile of coked-up excess. I'm fairly confident a concise, 30-minute disc by these guys can still be good.

Tbh, I thought Ned was above the easy needling like that.

democracy is usually bad,

As long as we're not below the needling.

Just surprised to see Ned tossing off easy zings like he was in the good squad itt.

ugh, "goon"

the album title represents "what the record sounds like. It comes from five different people," meaning that all of the members of the band contributed to the songwriting process

whoaaaa that's deep shit

Never break the chain.

The Strokes still get a reflexive 'yeah RIGHT' from me ten years on, I admit, but now it's more like 'wait...you're still trying? really?'

Because they never really seemed to succeed, did they? Not on the level they appeared to be aiming for. So yeah, cheap shots, but I stand by the belief that they were a failed boy band in the end.

I guess I'm just not used to Ned's snarky side!

Anyway, I think The Strokes not living up to "success" was more the media's fault than theirs. I mean, no band was ever going to live up to that "SAVIORS OF ROCK" bullshit. But, I mean, here they are headlining festivals like Lollapalooza and Coachella a decade on, so they must have done something right.

Quite right. They didn't die.

They were a terrific boy band, and I've never known a boy band that boasted great haircuts, to be honest, unless we count the Beatles and Monkees, and why not.

Christ, Alfred, there was more an actual dynamic between those doofs in the Libertines than there was between the Strokes.

I don't know, I never really bought into the criticism of "rich boys playing dress up". I mean, sure they had connections, but a) its not like they were the first band to take advantage of such and b) they had some great tunes on the first two albums that made all that stuff irrelevant in my mind anyway. Not that I'm going to convince you otherwise, but I think you're overly dismissive and picking out easy criticism that was mostly beyond the band's control. Sure, hate the music, fair play, but a lot of what went wrong with their expectations (and failure to live up to them) was beyond their control anyway.

The Libertines were my favorite boy band of the early 2000's!

This is It, excellent 30 minutes on the treadmill at 4.5 mph with the "rolling hills" option.

Which is to say: I agree with most of your essay, Ned, but because they're a boy band the Strokes' ephemerality never bothered me.

If I had to be vaguely generous it's that they turned out to be the John the Baptists of the decade's scene-as-such, but then outstripped by a slew of stuff in their wake, or well positioned to take advantage of it (the White Stripes in a nutshell, really).

the Strokes' ephemerality never bothered me

Honestly they had pretty much slipped my mind entirely until the Coachella headlining mention.

Little-known fact: The second Strokes album is better, top to bottom, than the first.

Not that you'd hear anyone ever say so, because folks were too busy backlashing to actually give it a good listen.

That said, the third album was awful and I have very little interest in whatever's next.

(Also, I thought Hammond's first solo album was excellent, but his second was ... not. Never heard Casawhatever's.)

Julian's had some moments. I liked Hammond's Guided by Voices cover.

Little-known fact: The second Strokes album is better, top to bottom, than the first.

It's so rarely asserted that you'll find six hundred threads here devoted to this fact.

if the strokes had continued to release albums w/ the same quality as the first two, I think they'd have decent stature in 2011, like, if there were 5 pretty good strokes albums right now, even if they sounded pretty much like the first 2, they wouldn't be considered a failure. they stopped being good at what they did and stopped doing it. the shtick didn't fail them.

cf. spoon, white stripes

fwiw, i don't think Spoon has a "schtick" like these other two bands

^I used to think that, then Spoon released like four more albums^

who would've thought that a band's press people would lie in order to make their music seem bigger and/or significant than it actually is! who do those people think they are?

^I used to think that, then Spoon released like four more albums^

I think Spoon has pretty clearly evolved over time.

http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/5066/sppom.jpg

and i think Kill the Moonlight is when they really started to take off. their peak being Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga of course.

you're close. it's Gimme Fiction

That Spoon graphic is otm ... although I tend to reach for Telephone more than Sneaks

julian's recent solo stuff was strong so looking forward to hearing this

billstevejim OTM

julian can still write a hook like a motherfucker but he's such a bad lyricist now

i know ppl will be all "when was he ever a good lyricist lol" but on the first two albums he was at worst kind of a non-entity lyrically & at best he could be pretty elementarily poignant about relationships (i.e. "12:51") -- now his songs are all like nonsensicle ramblings about the elements & shit

I think he does some intentional stupidification of his lyrics less he be taken seriously. sometimes he overdoes that.

i think marriage ruined him as a lyricist

You Only Live Once is their best song since the first album IMO.

you could convince me of that -- the demo is great too

kinda looking forward to this as i liked casablancas solo album quite a lot. hes still got it. hopefully thats still there when hes in a room with the rest of the strokes.

Like, why in the world would reviewing an album be like writing a 4th grade book report? If you have contextual details at your disposal, use them. It's an album ffs.

yeah i mean also a newspaper like The Guardian has to include details or backstory printed elsewhere that general readers who are not mad fans of the given band might have missed. the G's comments board is the freaking worst in the world, seems constantly to be a home for fun-hating, angry, disenchanted tossbags.

the bit on NME I thought was totally unneeded, but this guy def hit upon every feeling I gained from listening to (a couple times) the stream up-thread. It's funny - that effortless cool has totally been forgone in name of this bizarre over-structuring whilst feigning little effort, which really more comes off as literally giving little effort. This concept makes more sense in my head.

@cphilp

How would you know it's a good album? It's not out yet. And while you may disagree with the review, you can't say it's terrible. Alexis Petridis is one of the best in his business.

Think we should lay off Petridis a few weeks' grace for rightly ripping it out of Conor McNicholas over the first couple of paragraphs.

the thing about this album thats the oddest is that for a band that talked about having good taste in that observer interview (where mcnichols sounded pretty stupid), they seem to have lost most of it on this album.

The boys are on the cover of the latest Spin, who also gave the album an 8/10. They look even more throat-punchable than usual on the cover, too. I guess it's fitting that the world's most irrelevant rock mag is still championing the world's most irrelevant pop stars. Match made in heaven. And hilarious.

The review is ridiculous, true - but Spin is, after all, a business... I've never tried to get too mad at mag covers b/c I know they need to be sensational to a degree. So long as they're being reasonable.... Oasis 3 times a year is not reasonable (see: Britain)

Not especially or as usually enamored of this one; too many superfluous complications (e.g. the first single has all those extra guitar runs). I like the last song the most (the second one they played on SNL).

ok so Machu Picchu is brilliant!

i love Machu Picchu, Taken for a Fool, Gratisfaction (dumb title aside), and Life is Simple

I've been listening to the album a lot today and suprisingly I like it so far ! much much (much) better than the previous one. I don't have a clear idea of all the tracks but my favourite ones for now are "games" (gtreat chorus and synth) and "life is simple" (lovely chorus). "metabolism" is awful and could have been on "first impression"...
feels good to listen to this album on a sunny sunday.

Gratisfaction sounds like the third single from a later Supergrass album.

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/15230-angles/ 'a glorified spit-balling session.. lurching fragmentation' nails it.

I really detest how much ego Dombal puts into his writing. The analysis was spot-on, but lines like

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?

Everybody wants to quit while they're ahead. Some actually do it.

But on the sad-eyed and drum-less "Call Me Back", he's left to moan about how "no one has the time, someone's always late" against a single guitar and ethereal keyboard. Listening to the track, it's pretty easy to see why people may not be returning his calls.

Watch this hard-hitting journalism inseminate its way into the 6789263792694 subsequent reviews that will follow. I literally groaned. It's like... it's not even a step above, it's a handicapped bar-stool above a pun.

lot of rubbish on this album but i think that Life is Simple in the Moonlight is one of their best ever songs.

well, I like this album more and more. not as much as the first two but I like its variety and many bits and pieces here and there that I enjoy (the final harmonies in "you're so right", the billy idolesque mood of "two kinds", the smooth ending of "games", the moody verses of "call me back" and the beach boys bridges and of course, "life is simple" which is, indeed, beautiful).

and when I talk about beach boys, I mean smile/smiley smile kinda bits, not the rich and complex harmonies !

aye it's gonna be one of those albums that in years to come gets that classic people-realising-it-was-a-lot-better- than-they-thought thing. like.. i dunno the 2nd Television album or whatever.

beside "life is simple" and its singalong chorus, there's no HUGE track but somehow, very often I have one part or another of a song in my head (right now it's the bridges of "call me back"). also "darkness" which I found meh at first kinda grew on me. now I find it pretty fun.

apparently they played taken for a fool on letterman. good choice strokes!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79ldB7ltkYo

Re: piscesx' point, I've noticed that the reviews tended to get worse the closer they appeared to release date and wonder how much the Strokes scuppered themselves by talking up the troubled vibe behind the album. It seemed like the more unhappy they seemed in interviews, the worse the record sounded, like, "Well hell if even the band can't get behind it, why should we overlook the bad bits?"

Yeah I was wondering that. The reviews have been focusing on how they didn't enjoy the recording the process but they surely wouldn't have any idea if the band hadn't been saying that in every interview. I must admit I like this record quite a bit but it is a strange experience listening to it knowing the band don't rate it themselves, like should I really be enjoying it? Bands usually wait till the next album or a few years later to express their dissatisfaction with their albums (see Noel Gallagher with every Oasis album after Definitely Maybe) The only other time I can think of this happening is when The Beta Band did that interview in the NME the week before their debut album came out saying their album was shit.

hey, that's a great performance on letterman.
there's an energy and... an edge that's almost new !
do they get excited by this after all ?

Yeah, it really is a good performance. Much better than those 2 consecutive stale-males on SNL. Kinda wish they had more raw-energy rock w/ this album tho... would really love to see a performance top Take It Or Leave It on Letterman. Honestly have watched that vid at least 6 times.

are there ever cases of bands getting older and not getting progressively more mellow?

'Life Is Simple In The Moonlight' is really one of the best Strokes-songs, and "Machu Picchu" is not far behind. Overall this album is a very pleasant surprise, I really didn't expect anything from it.

are there ever cases of bands getting older and not getting progressively more mellow?

― Radical Adults Lick Based God Style (kelpolaris)

I think Tom Waits started doing fairly mellow songs before going weird and aggresive.

He still mellows out from time to time tho. He mellows way more than how he mellowed back then. It's fairly normal to mellow out with age tho... testosterone levels drop. Fact.

Scott Walker's not terribly mellow.

lou reed ?

he's a pussycat now.

ahah, really ? haven't heard about him in a while but I had kept this image of a grumpy ol' bastard !

for the past cpl of years lou has been making noise improv w his metal machine music trio, or collaborating w john zorn and laurie anderson, so he's less mellow now than at any time in the last 30 years

strokes alb is abt half gd - think i prefer it to the third alb, at least - and is far from the disaster the hatas are making it out to be. petredis as ever is a cloth-eared idiot who responds to other ppl's responses rather than to the thing itself - fuck him, worst music writer ever

Haters are usually on the right side of history.

I think this record's OK and occasionally (first and last tracks) great but I don't think there's any danger of it being regarded as an overlooked masterpiece in years to come. The haters are probably safe.

We usually are!

are there ever cases of bands getting older and not getting progressively more mellow?

― Radical Adults Lick Based God Style (kelpolaris), Thursday, March 24, 2011 10:15 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

the ex
nick cave (grinderman obv)

Wire

the read & burn stuff was pretty harsh but what i've heard of the new one seems a little mellowed

zoikes
http://www.nme.com/news/the-strokes/55759

I wonder if Hipster Runoff will comment on this

these guys know what theyre doing. even if the 'we hate it/each other' angle has backfired slightly, due to journos taking the easy/predictable/lazy line that if the band hate it it must be bad (though to be fair it isnt that great anyway, not awful though).

i really really love this album.

so much that i am going to MSG tonight

i'll be there!

01 “Is This It”
02 “Reptilia”
03 “Under Cover Of Darkness”
04 “Hard To Explain”
05 “Last Nite”
06 “Juicebox”
07 “Someday”
08 “You’re So Right”
09 “Under Control”
10 “You Only Live Once”
11 “New York City Cops”
12 “Games”
13 “Whatever Happened”
14 “Taken For A Fool” (w/ Elvis Costello)
————–
15 “Ask Me Anything” (Guitar version)
16 “Modern Age”
17 “Gratisfaction”
18 “I Can’t Win”
19 “Take It Or Leave It”

didn't think that actually was elvis costello, good show!

hmm just noticed that's missing life is simple, which they def played.