CD of The Week

The Strokes have been confounding expectations and marching to their own beat for at least a decade now. The influential NYC rockers barely toured outside of festival dates until this year, when they launched their biggest trek in ages (they already played a killer show at the Mann Center about a month ago). All the guys have spent time on their own side projects, with frontman Julian Casablancasusing his other band The Voidz for his most out-there musical impulses. The last Strokes album, 2020’s The New Abnormal, dropped at the start of the pandemic, but some of the deeper cuts became streaming hits with a new, younger audience. (“Ode to the Mets” is a fan fave with Gen Z now??) For their first new record in six years, Reality Awaits, Casablancas doubles down on his use of autotune as the band mixes their guitar heroics with mix-tempo malaise.

Reality Awaits opens with the autotune front and center on “Psycho Shit,” a ballad that gets bigger and brasher as Casablancas sings about “my beloved songs that define me.” Dine N’Dash” has instantly recognizable guitar work from Albert Hammond Jr. and Nick Valensi, and Fab Moretti's tight drumming… but also Julian does some spoken word with a fake British accent at one point?

“Lonely in the Future” finds Casablancas taking the POV of cranky elder rock statesmen, singing that “I did that yesterday, oh/I heard that years ago when I was a kid” and referencing Harry Styles and YouTube music critic Anthony Fantano. Perhaps the most straightforward Strokes rocker on here, “Going to Babble On” (get it?) has some sociopolitical undertones. For the younger fans’ preferred version of The Strokes, “Falling Out of Love” is a heartbroken, autotune-heavy ballad, as is “Liar’s Remorse.”

Lead single “Going Shopping” is infectiously, sneakily catchy, with all five band members at the peak of their powers. Driven by a liquid guitar line and the most melodic moments on the record, Casablancas mocks consumerism and capitalism throughout the best song on the album.

Nearing the end of the record, “The Fruits of Conquest” rides a funky, muscular guitar riff a bit too long and Reality Awaits wraps up on a chilled-out note with another autotuned ballad, “Tyrants of the Mellow Moon.”

For those who can’t get past the autotune, Julian has always put effects on his vocals… most of those early Strokes songs have that layer of lo-fi distortion on his voice. But if you were fearing Reality Awaits would lean too far into the unreality of The Voidz, those fears are unnecessary. It seems like the next logical step after The New Abnormal, or as logical as can be expected in the reality The Strokes have inhabited for much of their career.