First impression is mostly unreliable. I knew this 3rd album of The Strokes would sound different. I've made the necessary mental preparation. However, on the first listening, I still couldn't quite shift myself away from the Is This It?/Room on Fire expectation, so I just found it sort of OK. Things began to change after the 2nd and 3rd listen. The more I listen by now, the more I'm hooked to this album. The length of each track is double or even triple of their previous songs but somehow the songs are cleverly structured. Emotion of the songs are built to explode at last ("Juicebox", "Vision of Division", "Ize of the World"). The first song "You Only Live Once" is the only song which sounds like the old Strokes, very catchy. Julian's voice was obviously affected much by his over consumption of alcohol (so some may say his voice is horribly scratchy). I think it quite matches with the heavy music and lyrics. I can't understand why people keep complaining of the obscurity of The Strokes' lyrics. It is very explicitly dark. It's strange for a newly married man to write such dark lyrics. Julian was (is?) like a man on the verge of nervous breakdown. My favourite tracks are Heart In A Cage, Vision of Division, Ask Me Anything (there's no guitar, just melatron, wow), 15 Minutes, Ize of the World, Evening Sun and the last one (well, almost all the songs). This album is clearly not everyone's cup of tea like Is This It?, but it's definitely one of my favourite in 2006.
1 comment:
great!!
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