The Strokes - Comedown Machine Review

It's not very often a well established band decides to wipe the slate clean and put out a completely different sound on their fifth album (sarcasm). Its actually very surprising how many great bands follow the pattern of releasing a classic, another great album, one or two shitty albums and then try to change the game up with a 5th or 6th album. Take Coldplay for example, we all thought we knew what Coldplay was about after they gave us some of the most beautiful thoughtful music collectively as a band as we'd ever heard before. Then they had a mid-life crises and released Mylo Xyloto. Not to get into the Coldplay conversation but it wasn't Coldplay, it was a Brian Eno injected pop album featuring Chris Martin. Many bands follow this trend but few actually pull it off.

It was easy to hear in the Strokes fourth studio LP "Angles" that they weren't really in it. Somewhere between their third album (which wasn't great either) the band kind of fell apart. Lead singer Julian Casablanca's released his single project called "Phrazes For The Young" and it sounded nothing like The Strokes. Backed up by tons of synths and weird electronic hooks, the rockstar no longer seemed to exist without the rock-band. Three years later we heard the mediocre "Angles" LP, sounding nothing like Julians single stuff but more like a forced effort to sound like The Strokes.

Fast-forward to today. The first time I sat down and went through this 38 minute album I was surprised but it left me in a good mood, an initially appealing piece of work. I then went to bed, woke up and couldn't help but putting it on again while eating my cereal, still finding it easy to get into. It shows up in your iTunes looking very retro with the RCA red cover almost giving it the look of a mix tape. It's ieasier to listen to then the last two records but is much different then the first two. Say you mashed the good aspects of "Phrazes For The Young" with the rock and roll sounds of "Room on Fire", you'd receive a little baby called "The Comedown Machine". It has a sort of post punk psychedelic sound while Julian sings in a super high pitched soft voice that sits half behind half in front of the instrumentals, especially heard on tracks like "One Way Trigger", "Partners In Crime", and the closing track of the record. It's hard to explain exactly what this album does sonically but if I close my eyes I can picture myself smoking a cigarette in a 1985 Benz while the sun beats down on me. This album tastes like New York in the summer. We hear many different types of lyricism and style on the album. The song "50 50" is maybe one of the more relevant punk songs The Strokes have ever released, where the title track is sort of a love ballet.

I gave it a few more days, and the more I listen the more I find myself falling in love with the Strokes again. Overall this is a good step for the band, they may not be the rockstars they were in the early 2000's but who is these days? Indie rock was dead and The Strokes helped resurrect it, maybe it's going to be another lull but with albums like this, were headed in the right direction.