CD Reviews – The Strokes: Angles
The Strokes are back, and they’ve brought the eighties with them. It’s been five long Strokes-less years since the band released an album, and at this point fans will probably accept anything they happen to put out, which is good, because at some points it sounds like “anything” is what they were going for on their new album Angles. When “Under Cover of Darkness” was released, the first single from the new album, many were quick to declare a return to form for the New York band. And while some songs do live up to the lofty standards set by their first full length, Is This It, for the most part the new album leans more towards the abstract style of their last effort, First Impressions of Earth, only with more synthesizers. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as FIoE was by no means a bad album, just a departure from the finely-tuned garage rock of their first two albums. Angles builds on the strangeness that defined FIoE and emerges sounding like its own unique entity, while still managing to capture the essence of The Strokes. Fans of the band should not miss this (like they would anyway).
Braden Dupuis
Contributor