The Strokes re-invent their wheel, sort of


Halfway through the first listen of the first track, you'll be hooked. I was.

The stuttering rhythm guitar and walloping drums that start the song don't promise anything particularly earthshaking, but then come the opening guitar chords, clean and direct, with just the right amount of swagger. In about twelve seconds, singer Julian Casablancas starts crooning and declaiming in an arch yet affecting style, punctuating the verses with 'oh, oh's' like a goofily-happy Lou Reed. Then the guitar gets loud and boisterous, and the joyous infectiousness of the song has utterly seeped in. It's three minutes and nine seconds of pop perfection.

The song is "You Only Live Once," the opening track on First Impressions of Earth, the third CD by New York post-punk darlings, The Strokes. The tune's marriage of indie-rock idiosyncracy and arena-ready boldness couldn't be more perfect, and the instant the track finishes, you'll want to listen to it again. It's a damn shame that the weather sucks in my neck of the woods, because this song'd sound absolutely sublime cranked in the car on a sunny day. Seldom has a band made lyrical ennui ("I can't see the sunshine") so bracing and addictively catchy.

The rest of the CD's pretty damn good, too. No, wait, it's really damn good, even great in places, as the band's concise, tightly-wound style gets a bit of a goose by some fuller production and some good old-fashioned wing-spreading. Casablancas no longer sounds like he's singing through a broken megaphone, and his throaty croon blossoms in the slightly more lush surroundings. Guitarists Nick Valensi and Albert Hammond, Jr. prove they're capable of more than just the sparse hooks that tinctured the band's first two albums, throwing out some dizzying Arabic fretwork on "Vision of Division." And the band branches out stylistically, indulging in percolating Magnetic Fields-style balladry ("Ask Me Anything"), a disco backbeat ("On the Other Side"), and a Pogues-worthy drunken sea-shanty-cum-punk-pounder ("15 Minutes").

All this experimenting goes down so nicely because the band still keeps the songs brief and punchy, and they still know their way around a melody. "Razorblade" cribs the melodic hook from Barry Manilow's "Mandy" (!) to crafty effect, and Nikolai Frature's strutting bass renders the high-velocity "Juicebox" as hooky as it is cathartically shredding.

Great as so much of First Impressions is, though, it'll take an earthquake-sized force of nature to dislodge "You Only Live Once" from my head. I can hardly wait 'til the sun comes out again.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mining for Overlooked Pop Music Jewels: Jigsaw

Image
Venerable record chain Tower Records filed for bankruptcy late last year, and its demise bummed me out in a big way. I hadn't shopped with frequency at Tower in ages--put bluntly, their steep prices of late alienated me big-time--but back in the eighties the chain's size and diversity did a lot to open my ears. I remember every purchase I made at Tower Records' Tacoma store from my first at age 14 (for the record, a cassette of Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy and a vinyl copy of Sparks' Angst in My Pants ), all the way to just before I moved to Seattle at age 21 ( Invisible Lantern by the Screaming Trees --and yes, I AM a big ol' dork for remembering). Rampant sentimentality, however, did bupkis to keep me from picking at the chain's dying carcass late last year like any good bargain-hunter. Right before the Tower Records on 5th Avenue in Seattle breathed its last in December, it bestowed one last parting gift in its final week: a 90%-off sale that drew
Read more

An Interview with Joe Dallesandro

Image
( I wrote this interview for Seattlest.com , and it is reprinted on the Petri Dish with their kind permission. ) For a minute, it looks like the perfect photo opportunity. Joe Dallesandro—former bodyguard at Andy Warhol’s fabled Factory, star of several key Warhol-sponsored cult films in the sixties and seventies, and accidental avatar of the Sexual Revolution—stands outside the W Hotel in downtown Seattle, his back to me. He cuts an almost dangerous-looking figure. Clad head to foot in black, his compact body sits atop slightly bowed legs in an almost pugilistic stance as he smokes his cigarette. A soul-patched, dark-haired kid stops to bum a smoke, and both figures huddle, almost silhouetted thanks to the overreaching shadow cast by the hotel building, as vaporous off-white ribbons of smoke curl above their heads. But then Dallesandro begins to turn, and I don’t want to come off like some stalker before a formal introduction, so I retreat back into the hotel lobby. The sublime noir
Read more

Character Actor Heaven: Hollywood Collectors Show, Feb 2005

Image
Hollywood Collectors' Show, February 18/19, 2005 Character actors are the building blocks of cinematic life. And like a lot of important foundations (architectural or otherwise), they get little credit from the outside world for their contributions. Fortunately, there's the bi-monthly Hollywood Collectors' Show , where fans of all stripes can show these hard-working but underappreciated fixtures of film and TV some serious love, and even get some love back. Expect to make a bit of an investment for that love. Daily admission is $15 ($25 for a two-day pass), and all of the celebrities in attendance charge for their autographs (more on that later). But for a real film (or TV) nut, a Hollywood Collector's Show is absolute manna from heaven, and totally worth the extra change. Imagine a Star Trek convention stripped to its absolute essentials--ample celebrity guests and heaps of cool merchandise--and you get the idea. My wife and I saved our pennies for several months and
Read more