The Strokes - Angles

The Kings are dead. Long live the Kings? The musical landscape into which ‘Angles’ finds itself thrust is vastly different to that encountered by the Fab Five way back at the turn of the millennium. Hailed as the ‘Saviours of Rock’n’Roll’, their lo-fi garage rock ethos and effortless, laid-back NYC cool allegedly saved music from the insipid clutches of nu-metal and acoustic Dad-rock and inspired a whole new generation to pick up a six string. Without them, so the myth goes, we’d have no Monkeys, no Franz, and no anyone else who vaguely borrowed from the rather large cannon of rock and punk pre-1979 whilst smoking a fag and looking ‘cool’.

Of course, you know that already. You also know that it’s mostly utter bollocks, a nice spin by the marketing men keen to shift a few more units of product and lazy hacks trying to claim that they were writing about epoch-making times. Yes, they did for Converse All-Stars and skinny jeans what Oasis had done for Clark’s Desert Boots and parkas a decade before, but what musical influence they had was far more subtle; they made it cool and acceptable to sound shit. Fast forward to 2011 and with music being made for phones and tiny speakers on laptops in bedrooms, it’s scary to think just how prescient they were. They weren’t the only ones to do it (take a bow Jack White), and I’m not sure whether it was by accident or design, but it was this approach to recording which has influenced everything since. If you don’t believe me, try to think of the last decent indie-rock album that didn’t sound like it was recorded in a tin can. Not easy, is it?

The problem ‘Angles’ faces then is how to sound relevant in a world still influenced by everything they stood for, but one in which the cool kids have progressed beyond electro-pop and the 80’s revival to the point where the early 90’s are now the benchmark. In other words, what should The Strokes circa 2011 sound like? It’s perhaps the album’s biggest shortcoming that it fails to find a definitive answer. Their scattergun approach to experimentation isn’t as bloated and desperate as on previous effort ‘First Impressions Of Earth’, but it still feels like they’re wrestling with inner demons and searching for answers. At their insouciant best, they sound like they’ve never been away – ‘Under Cover Of Darkness’ finds them comfortable in their own skin and just being The Strokes – although elsewhere it’s painfully obvious they’ve no idea how to get beyond that.

It’s also obvious that someone, somewhere in the camp has been plugged into the zeitgeist, and at least is aware which way the musical wind is blowing. Hence ‘Two Kinds Of Happiness’, a John Huges Brat-Pack era arena anthem that borrows from both Tom Petty and U2, and ‘Games’, the sort of spacey, synth-heavy number of the type featured heavily on Julian’s solo album. Best of all is ‘Taken For A Fool’, which manages to sound both retro and futuristic at the same time as being undeniably them. Combining a trademark driving verse with a huge chorus and fuzz guitar, complete with a typically weary Casablancas delivery, its effortless brilliance shows what they are still capable of when they put their minds to it and pull together. Sadly, it doesn’t seem like that was a common occurrence, and that’s exactly the problem.

By now, you’ll no doubt be familiar with just how difficult the recording of all this was. Described variously as ‘awful’, ‘tortuous’, and full of ‘hostility and resentment’, it appears that all is not well on Planet Strokes. It also appears strange that a decision to promote harmony and equality – sharing song writing duties, and royalties, equally for the first time – ended up being so divisive, but this new-found inter-band democracy seems to have been their downfall. Every bus needs a driver, and by ceding control, Casablancas has ended up in a position where everyone is trying to read the map and no-one has the wheel; not for nothing did he quip that this new approach was ‘Operation Make Everyone Happy’. This lack of a primus inter pares has lent everything a fragmented, disjointed air. There is a distinct lack of cohesion; between the songs, between the influences, and between the music and lyrics. This certainly wasn’t helped by Casablancas literally emailing in his vocals while the others recorded in isolation, and we’re left a series of disparate parts and jumbled ideas where nothing is whole. Equality has also usurped quality, to the point where ideas that should never have seen the light of day have ended up front and centre. The two-note dirge of ‘You’re So Right’, the strange reggae pop of ‘Machu Picchu’, and the prog experimentation of ‘Metabolism’ are surely the results of trade off – ‘You can do X if I can do Y’. It would certainly be interesting to discover who wrote what exactly, although given that Casablancas claimed last year to favour ‘Thin Lizzy style kung-fu rock, with cool 80’s melodies’, it’s safe to say he’s the brains behind ‘Gratisfaction’.

Musically weak, lyrically it doesn’t fare much better. Never ones for momentous insight, last time out Casablancas claimed ‘I’ve got nothing to say’, and nothing in the interim has cheered him up. He opens by stating ‘I’m putting your patience to the test’ and continues the introspection with ‘I wanna be outrageous / But inside I know I’m plain’. On ‘Games’ he complains that we’re ‘Living in an empty world’, a weary sentiment echoed on ‘Under Cover’ that ‘Everybody’s singing the same song for ten years’. By the end of the album, he’s in full-on, hang-dog depressive mode, lamenting on ‘Metabolism’ that ‘I just wanna be somebody…and still I fail’ and how he’s ‘Trying to find the perfect life’, an unusual claim for a successful, acclaimed musician.

But then the band, and Casablancas in particular, have always existed in a strange dichotomy. Well-to-do kids from privileged backgrounds playing at being Lower East Side wasters. Arrogance and nonchalance hiding a fierce work ethic (‘I would prefer it if people thought that I just played the guitar for three minutes a week… But you work so hard, you make it sound effortless.’) Elegant, posturing rock stars hiding behind crippling insecurity. ‘Angles’ and everything around it leaves you with the feeling that they’ve grown up living the dream, and realised that actually, it’s not all that. It’s gone from being fun to being just another job, something done to ‘pay the mortgage’ as Valensi wryly noted. Perhaps the drinking, drugs, and celebrity girlfriends have taken their toll. Perhaps they were just in the right time at the right place, a cosmic confluence of coincidence. It’s a shame as, like them or loathe them, I doubt whether some of their more acclaimed contemporaries have had such a direct impact – has Thom Yorke ever inspired anyone to fully master the quirks of Pro Tools? – particularly in cultural terms. Nothing ever lasts forever, and it’s weird to think that as they attempt to kick start a second dawn, The White Stripes decided to call it a day ‘to preserve what is beautiful and special about the band and have it stay that way.’ Ten years ago, The Strokes posed a clever rhetorical question: Is This It? Seems we finally have the answer.