The Strokes - First Impressions Of Earth
Track List :1. You Only Live Once
2. Juicebox
3. Heart In a Cage
4. Razorblade
5. On the Other Side
6. Vision of Division
7. Ask Me anything
8. Electricityscape
9. Killing Lies
10. Fear of Sleep
11. Evening Sun
12. Ize of the World
13. 15 Minutes
14. Red Light
New York cool, then turns out to be a fantasy: a promise and attractive at first sight, an exotic thrill - but which, when you click on the pavement, as the smoke dissipated Manhattan from a manhole. You have landed hoping to rub shoulders with cheekboned axe-slingers in the subway, meet your man at the corner of Lexington 125, not to mention the city in a grip you hug the Bacchanalian excesses of rock'n'roll. Instead, you discovered CBGBs was a Hard Rock Café for groups punk shit, you could not dance in bars without feeling the leather glove of the NYPD, and the relay of innovation had been left to the freaks, geeks and foreigners: the likes of Folk disturbed primitives Animal Collective, literate dance-punk LCD Soundsystem and frocked-up cabaret emigrants Antony Hegarty.
In a sense, it's a lot to do with The Strokes. If early glimpses cast as raffish young princes of the renaissance of New York, they have done everything to avoid this fate. Practitioners of an interview style bordered to the catatonic, a sportsman never-give-a-fuck attitude that has sometimes extended to the live arena, they greet hosted adulation like most Jehovah's Witnesses.
Of course, "Room on Fire 'is a' difficult 'album done good - perhaps because there is something strangely appealing about the sound of a band on top of the world, but at the end of their tether . At present, however, The Strokes need something big, and you can forget about these jibes overprivilege: this is the sort of big that no amount of time at the Swiss finishing school can prepare. Because precisely, the "First Impressions Of Earth," The Strokes are on their own.
"First Impressions… was perhaps wise, full nine months in the achievement compared to the previous record of two hastily. From the first line - a glorious, bawled" Some people think they are always right! "- It is immediately clear a weight lifted. Probably the greatest Strokes song to date, 'Once You Only Live' finds Julian Casablancas promising "a thousand ways to please your man", punctuating each line with an "uh - huh "or" uh-oh "and generally sounding at the top of his game. Musically, however, is the perfect reminder of how The Strokes are dirty, rough rock'n'roll: defined by Fab Moretti ticking metronome beats and Nick Valensi's lustrous, shiny guitar chime is the absolute embodiment of this band of shiny new-wave heart.
They can rock'n'roll, of course. The hirsute "Juicebox" ensures a fair stab, prowling Cramps on a tense bass line. Even better, however, is "Heart In A Cage". The Strokes' response to Iggy's' The Passenger 'is an epic de las punk-soul chiseled concrete and steel that drifts through an urban landscape washed-out in search of persons unnamed. Even though "First Impressions"… finds The Strokes embracing occasional lightness of tone, they remain somewhat cantankerous bum. This could - in fact, sometimes the case - seem like the churlishness of trust fundee spoiled, but what saves them is a wryness of touch. See "On the Other Side", a cartoon snapshot of a life spent in the glory of the goldfish bowl. "I hate them all," Casablancas sings in a deep, syrupy croon, "I hate myself for them hatred." So Julian has a drink: "I love them all." And he has another drink: "I hate more than I did before…"
Oddest of all, however, is "Ask Me Anything." Just graceful, sweeping string and a whirlwind of synth - no guitar, no drums - she sees Julian take the microphone for a non-denominational sense: "Harmless children, we named our soldiers after you / Don 't be a coconut, God is tryina "Talk with you / We could drag you down / That 's for other groups to do…." A curious highlight, and it was only after that that "First Impressions"… really shows no sign of the flag. "Killing Lies" takes The Strokes' penchant for repetition, but forgets his talent for skidding, vertigo propulsion, and que'15 Minutes' veers close to the timely closure karaoke, Casablancas lines of the service: "It's not that I do not love you, it's just that I do not really know," as a sort of Shane MacGowan pissed it is accidentally spilling a pint of whisky.
Fortunately, however, is a clue to the fact that The Strokes sounds like they will play again: maybe not the debauched blows "Last Nite", but an old, wiser kind of pleasure that you learn only once you Make dragged under the meteorite. Yet, it remains a challenge to crack their ice-cool exterior, to really feel things as they feel - but is the matter? The Strokes are, and always have been, a band that looks very much at arm's length - and, consequently, "First Impressions Of Earth 'remains, in the best way, untouchable: the first - in fact, perhaps the last - word in New - York City cool.
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