New record review: The Strokes ‘Reality Awaits’

Six years after the release of The New Abnormal, The Strokes have returned with a new album that’s once again fitting for bizarre times, Reality Awaits (RCA/Cult).

The band’s previous LP, which won a Grammy Award for Best Rock Album, arrived when the world was shut down due to COVID-19. (Its title managed to come off like a timely play on the then-popular phrase ‘The new normal.’) Now things have been turned upside down again, this time on multiple fronts, so what better time for The Strokes to release a new album?

Reality Awaits, like any album (versus a collection of songs best streamed on Spotify), gets better with repeated listens. Upon first hearing the LP, the listener is struck by its unusual lyrics, delivered by a heavily autotuned Julian Casablancas. Yet the instrumentation is as solid as ever, and Casablancas’ talent for melody is undeniable, despite the choice to obscure his vocals with effects.

Amid at-times stream-of-consciousness rambling, Casablancas drops sarcastic, self-aware gems like ‘Only my ‘beloved’ songs will define me’ (‘Psycho Shit’) and ‘I’ve been thinking about what I want to say, but I’m an old man now, at least that’s what they tell me anyway’ (‘Going Shopping’). He even uses a song title as an apparent warning (‘Going To Babble On’) and hits a lyrical low point when he starts repeating ‘I'm a leech’ over and over (‘The Fruits Of Conquest’).

But the album has more highs than lows. The melancholic ‘Falling Out Of Love,’ though not as epic, gives The New Abnormal’s ‘At The Door’ a run for its money. ‘Going Shopping,’ the ultra-catchy lead single, is The Strokes at their classic best. What can one do during a time of unrelenting crises? The band offers as good an answer as any in the song’s video: Ham it up in a wacky, politically tinged clip, starring actor Walton Goggins.

The album has been in the works since at least 2022, when guitarist Albert Hammond Jr. described the ‘magical-ness’ of the experience of working in Costa Rica with producer Rick Rubin, who also produced The New Abnormal. Since then, the band has resumed touring regularly, this summer without fellow guitarist Nick Valensi, who is on a temporary break.

Whether the ‘magical-ness’ of those sessions has shone through on the final product isn’t yet clear. These are different times, when it’s easier to lose oneself in the comfort of time-worn yacht rock than listen to a challenging new album from a band that continues to prove their relevance.

It might take a few more listens, but I’m game.

At top: The cover of Reality Awaits, based on Untitled (Cowboy) by Richard Prince (1989)

New record review: The Strokes 'The New Abnormal'

The Strokes are back to bring some much-needed chill to the chaos of the world with the band’s first album in seven years, the somewhat prophetically titled “The New Abnormal.”

It’s appropriate that the Strokes, a band that rose in the shadow of one of the country’s most chaotic times, have returned today. The New York band’s first album, “Is This It,” surfaced on CD in the U.S. after the Sept. 11 attacks. The CD, the preferred format of the time, was delayed for release due to its “sexually explicit” cover, and the song “New York City Cops” was scrubbed from the post-9/11 track list. 

Of course, the delay didn’t stop the Strokes’ trajectory. Over the course of five albums, the band perfected its sound when so many other bands of the late '90s/early 2000s garage rock/post-punk revival stalled or faded away.

In 2020, the Strokes have released an album that sounds like the Strokes at their catchiest, produced by Rick Rubin, to boot. It’s a shame that the band members are quarantined like the rest of us, promoting the album via a Zoom listening session instead of onstage.

But as Julian Casablancas sings, “life is such a funny journey.” The song in question, "Eternal Summer," is perhaps the album’s best and most adventurous track, with Casablancas choosing to use his falsetto instead of his trademark croon. (It also samples the Psychedelic Furs’ '80s gem “Ghost in You.”) "At the Door" is reminiscent of "80s Comedown Machine," the best and most experimental song on the band's previous full-length album, "Comedown Machine."

Still, it’s comforting to hear that Casablancas croon alongside an Albert Hammond Jr. riff, and “The New Abnormal” delivers plenty of those moments. “Why Are Sundays So Depressing” and “Not the Same Anymore” are perhaps the most classic-sounding Strokes tracks here. 

The new wave side of the Strokes is apparent on “The New Abnormal,” too, and it’s as appealing as ever. The chorus of “Bad Decisions” sounds so much like “Dancing With Myself” that ’80s icon Billy Idol gets a writing credit. On “Brooklyn Bridge to Chorus,” Casblancas even asks: “And the eighties bands? Oh, where did they go?” 

The album closes with “Ode to the Mets,” a sad tribute to the baseball team, or perhaps anything that lets one down. “The New Abnormal” is not one of those things.

There are so many cool elements on the album, perhaps none more so than in “Ode to the Mets” when Casablancas interjects mid-song, “Drums please, Fab.” 

Moments like those make it seem like the Strokes have never been more content to just be the Strokes. Hopefully, when this is all over, they still are, because the world still really needs them.

At top, the album cover features the Jean-Michel Basquiat painting "Bird on Money" circa 1981. (Cult and RCA Records)

Beck provides an antidote for our times with uplifting live show

Genre-hopping genius Beck brought his masterful live show to Pinewood Bowl in Lincoln, Nebraska, on Sept. 19.

A night during a never-ending summer was a perfect backdrop for Beck to breeze through hits and rarieties from his 13 studio albums, from the ground-breaking "Odelay" to the Grammy-winning "Morning Phase." But Beck seemed most at home performing songs off his newest album, "Colors."

With embullient tunes like "I'm So Free," "Dreams," and "Up All Night," Beck's new album provides the right antidote for the times we live in. On "Wow," Beck has reached his pinnacle: He's still the eccentric pop star we've always known, but he's taken on almost an evangelistic form as he sings lines like "My demon's on the cellphone" and "It's your life, you gotta try to get it right."

Beck. At top, Julian Casablancas joined him onstage. (Photos by Christoper Windle.)

But we can't forget Beck's finer moments from his past. After opening with hits "Devil's Haircut" and "Loser," Beck took the crowd on a run through some of those moments with the sax-tinged "The New Pollution" and the sex-tinged "Mixed Bizness." He went back to "Guerro" for "Black Tamborine" before returning a second time to the Prince-flavored masterpiece "Midnite Vultures" for an acoustic version of "Debra," segueing into a crowd sing-along of "Raspberry Beret."

Beck gave a chance for his latest touring band to shine, with four members joining him at the front of the stage on vocals and a variety of instruments for a few acoustic songs. They performed slower songs "Lost Cause," "The Golden Age," and "Blue Moon" along with a couple of crowd requests.

But most of the show was an uplifting affair. After the acoustic break in the action, the full band returned with a high-energy string of mostly recent hits: "Dreams," "Girl," "Wow," "Up All Night," and "E-Pro."

Beck and his band came back for an extended encore of his biggest smash, "Where It's At," with band introductions to a variety of song snippets, including Chic's "Good Times" and New Order's "Blue Monday." But the most entertaining cover was a duet with Julian Casablancas of opening band the Voidz. Beck and the Strokes singer took on the Human League's "Don't You Want Me Baby" to hilarious effect. 

Beck closed out the show with "One Foot in the Grave" and came full circle with a reprise of "Where It's At," shuffling offstage along with his band members.

It was a night that recalled some of pop's biggest stars, Prince and Bowie among them, icons Beck no doubt emulates with great respect. Nearly 25 years after Beck hit it big, the show proved that he ranks up there with the best of them.