Angles

Since The Strokes are poised to release some generational crud later this month, I thought it would be a good idea to get familiar with their less-beloved middle period albums. Angles seems to be consistently the most well-liked of the three, and I can definitely see it as both overhated and overpraised in equal measure by different listeners.

It's easy to listen to this today and not think of it as some massive departure for the band, but I can definitely see how after three very garage rock revival-focused projects in the early to mid 2000s and a long break in between those and this it would gain an early reputation as quite different than what people were used to. Still, I think new wave and post-punk revival leanings among other new influences would come across more clearly if they weren't drowned in the mix as often as they are here. That's been their production style since day one obviously, but in my mind there's really no denying The New Abnormal does a way better job of getting those sounds across.

In addition to that, while I don't love being the lame guy that says Under Cover of Darkness is the only real *great* song here to stack up with previous best material (acknowledging it's the most similar to that previous material on the album), I can't pretend like it wasn't the only one that seriously connected with me after a first listen. There are more good and even very good songs here for sure, potentially even ones I will grow to love with relistens, but I do think a lot of the album's middle chunk is more or less the band on autopilot. Granted, The Strokes's autopilot (at least until recently, R.I.P.) is better than the average band's A material, but still.

And with the understanding that there are a lot of people who do entirely love this album and that they're by no means entirely invalid for doing so, I think it makes a lot of sense it comes off this way. The six year gap between First Impressions of Earth and this wasn't just the band spinning their wheels, but the result of an extended hiatus followed by an initial recording session Julian wasn't even present for that resulted in nearly all of its material eventually being heavily reworked. Yes, they did write it all together despite what some people claim, but it's not hard to see why The Strokes don't feel like quite the well-oiled machine they once did most of the time here.

It would be unfair to say they were just trying to finish their recording contract by this point as though there isn't still a ton of effort and more than a few moments of genuine quality on display here, but statements from Julian and other band members do make it seem like that's at least partially the case. At any rate, they still managed to pull off a good and worthwhile record bringing in many of the sounds they'd later use on their real comeback masterpiece. I'm just not quite there with those who think this is fantastic front to back, and I certainly don't get the people who think this is up there with or better than Is This It, or even has the same highs as that record.