Back To Abnormal.
Nothing is normal right now. You only have to look through the window of your four wall sanctuary you feel imprisoned in at this time to tell. But stay safe as houses at what you call home. Soon you won't feel so alone. But let's zone out in this quarantine with our headphones right now and forget about the loneliness to all this social distancing, as we maintain six feet laying down with some mood music for this self isolation in the middle of the night. Things are so strange right now even the New York band on everyone's t-shirt in the new millennium, The Strokes have a new album out...The Strokes baby! 'The New Abnornal' is their first album in seven years. And perhaps their best since their sophomore set 'Room On Fire' (2003). With all due respect to the 'First Impressions Of Earth', 'Angels' and 'Comedown Machine' big-three. This is just how abnormally good the new one is right now. In a sign of the stranger things time were we need it now more than ever. 'Is This It'?! Sometime or 'Someday' like 'Last Night' we wish it was the simpler, college days of 2001, when The Strokes released their iconic, classic debut in July like 'New York City Cops' just mere months before a truly terrible tragedy took the city and changed the world forever. Just as this band, Arcade Fire, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and The White Stripes were changing the sound and style of rock in this modern age for every band you see and hear now from the Kings Of Leon and Artic Monkeys to MGMT. And like a rolling stone with scruffier Beatles hair and a pride of place that could be set straight back in the same 60's, they sounded smoother than leather on bare cheeks. "It would be cool of 20 years from now," they said starting out in 2001,"people would still be talking about what good music we made." Imagine that.
Now almost two decades later and with the world in its worst state since the day the towers fell and put us all at war with an inner anxiety and an outward, side-eyed weary distrust for each other, The Strokes give us their sixth album after seven years. All for some music in times of corona that for at the very least gives us some distance and breathing room from all we inhale and can't take from the news on a daily basis before we choke up like we're all afraid to clear our throats in public for those same looks of distrust and disdain. But lets leave all that for the subways and sidewalks as we stay in our apartments and remind ourselves why The Strokes-who are keeping our enthusiasm-kept the magic of the worlds most famous town New York City alive. Just like when The Boss, Springsteen finally came back for 'The Rising' after 9/11 for an album of solidarity songs after a fan passed him walking the street and rolled down his car window and shouted, "WE NEED YOU!" We need music like this right now for some of the solace it can provide in these troubled times. And as The Strokes 'Abnormal' return with some Guggenheim album artwork by NYC's legendary Jean-Michel Basquiat (the beautiful 'Bird On Money') that Andy Warhol or Keith Haring would be jealous of, pop rock has never sounded so fresh and fortunate in our living room stereo galleries. Things are 'Not The Same Anymore' like that standout track were front man Julian Casablancas sings, "You’re not the same anymore/Don’t wanna play that game anymore/You’d make a better window than a door/Oh, the strangers, they implore/It gets so easy to ignore/Just like the girl next door," on a song that may as well be the, "And now the door slams shut/A child prisoner grows up" unfortunate, tragic anthem of our times. Just like the 'I Don't Like Monday's' like best 'Why Are Sunday's So Depressing' take which was clearly recorded months before COVID-19 turned every day in 2020 to the last one of the week.
Rick Rubin hallmark helmed like a Beastie Boy or Chilli Pepper in the Shangri-la studio in Malibi, California. So you know like Jay-Z's '99 Problems' a classic album ain't one. And this for the record might be full of some of the best Strokes tracks of one of the most influential bands of all time. Cross the bridge to Manhattan on this project and you can see this indie post punk and garage rock outfit in leather and skinny denim in the new wave electric of 'Brooklyn Bridge To Chorus', not only a Stroke of genius, but a master mainstream classic, record of the calendar. It's the kind of song even The 1975 couldn't come up with in all their years as Casablancas sings across the chorus, "I want new friends, but they don't want me/They're making plans while I watch TV/Thought it was them, but maybe it's me/I want new friends, but they don't want me", for some lyrics that right now can't help us feel triggered. Whereas on the 'Eternal Summer' we're all hoping for once this eternal rest is over (past Easter Trump!). With lyrics we only hope aren't all the way true like, "They got the remedy/But they won't let it happen/Yeah, they got the remedy/But they won't let it happen", for the Summer that won't go away like the one thing that won't right now and we only wish will when it gets too hot outside for people who can't understand what's happening or what they're doing to stay inside like they should. But for all the fickle fate aptly named tracks and singles like 'Bad Decisions' (like a lot of people are making right now whilst all the keyworkers and real heroes who wear scrubs are saving the world as we knew it) featuring the one and only Billy Idol (see he gets it) and the stellar standout on our front porch, 'At Your Door' were we should all be staying out right now, giving it up for those real heroes behind the masks that we clap...and hopefully in turn vote for. It's the closing 'Ode To The Mets' and its last minute in reprise that is so good it could take the "other" baseball team in this Yankee town all the way to the World Series...and it doesn't need any pinstripes to distract you to do so. And between the orange and blue like a Knickerbocker this is the most 'Selfless' album from these New York dolls yet. The same time we have the revival of a new Kooks album too from Blighty's Brighton beach. Right from the outstanding 'The Adults Are Talking' outset you know the maturity is set like in your ways past 40. Quiet...this might be The Strokes loudest record yet, albeit in a very different dynamic and way. And aptly again with the first words, "Say it after me/Say it after me/They will blame us, crucify and shame us/We can't help it if we are a problem/We are tryin' hard to get your attention/I'm climbin' up your wall/Climbin' up your wall", in closing how fitting? Say it after me. Sometimes abnormal is better than the new normal now. Now as we all need to take pause during this panicked planets pandemic, we can at least press play on this master stroke. TIM DAVID HARVEY.
Playlist Picks: 'Brooklyn Bridge To Chorus', 'Eternal Summer', 'Ode To The Mets'.
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