Pages tagged “the strokes”

They say alone we stand, together we fall apart. Something tells us, though, that The Strokes are gonna be all right. The hiatus has officially ended: the New York-based quintet has a followup to First Impressions of Earth in the works.

His dad? A prolific songwriter who penned tunes for Aretha Franklin and Whitney Houston. His band? A little New York rock outfit called the Strokes. The expectations for his solo material? Inflated, to say the least. But after years in the shadows as a rhythm guitarist, Albert Hammond Jr. is finally poised for the spotlight. His 2006 debut, Yours to Keep, was released to considerable critical success, and his sophomore effort ¿Cómo Te Llama?, which was released in July, is another step forward artistically for the 28-year-old.

After plugging the album in the UK, he returned to the States last week and took a few moments to talk to Paste about father-son bonding, what it's like to front a band and, oh yeah, that new Strokes album everyone's asking about.

At first glance, Nickel Eye, the nom de plume of a certain rock bassist's solo project, is slightly troubling. Its use of monetary/body part phrasing may cause the interested party to form a correlation with a much, ahem, different, band that employs a very similar formula with its moniker.

Casually solid second Stroke's solo shot

With his second record, Strokes’ guitarman Albert Hammond, Jr. demonstrates that his solo career is notable in its own right. While the songwriting varies across ¿Como Te Llama?'s 13 cuts, on tracks like the workmanlike opener “Bargain of the Century,” Hammond sounds like a one-man Strokes with vocals ironically more sympathetic than most of what Julian Casablancas usually musters, but with a casual fuzz to the production that continually coos “easygoing side project.” Even when Hammond vamps on “Victory at Monterey” or gets his skronk-funk on at the start of “Borrowed Time,” everything is austere but cozy.

There’s something both simple and transcendent about a classic pair of Chucks. It’s a style that’s lasted through the decades, with everyone from Brit punks to hip-hop moguls to young female MCs donning the kicks. And perhaps that’s why Converse managed to wrangle together L.A. beatmaker Pharrell Williams of N.E.R.D., Brooklyn's so-hot-right-now Santogold, and Strokes frontman Julian Casablancas to record a song together.

Albert Hammond, Jr., has revealed that his sophomore solo release, entitled ¿Cómo Te Llama?, will come out on July 8. He recorded the album during the Strokes' two-year (and counting) hiatus, taking breaks to celebrate his 28th birthday in April, to produce a track for N.Y. -ased act The Postelles, and (of course) to keep up with Upper East Side cult hit Gossip Girl.

"I'm really proud of the power this record has," Hammond said in a statement. "I feel like my melodies and song arrangements have matured. Lyrically, I tried to have the words flow out more freely and not try to write one song but many. I would just sing and sing and then arrange the words afterwards."

He recorded the album with the help of Marc Philippe Eskenazi, Matt Romano and Josh Lattanzi. (FYI to those with Strokes-related studio aspirations: Hammond works almost exclusively with men whose last names end with "zi.")

There has also been some recent good news for fans of Hammond's band. According to bass player Nikolai Fraiture, the group has finally begun to think about heading back into the studio to work on its fourth album.

¿Cómo Te Llama? tracklist:

1. Bargain Of A Century
2. In My Room
3. Lisa
4. GfC
5. The Boss Americana
6. Rocket
7. Victory At Monterey
8. You Won't Be Fooled By This
9. Spooky Couch
10. Borrowed Time
11. G Up
12. Miss Myrtle
13. Feed Me Jack Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Peter Sellers

Related links:
Albert Hammond, Jr. on MySpace
YouTube: Albert Hammond Jr. - "101"
Review>: The Strokes - First Impressions of Earth

Got news tips for Paste? E-mail news@pastemagazine.com.

Different Strokes: Gritty New York quintet does its best to branch out on third LP

A half decade after luring rock critics back to the garage, The Strokes cast their heavy-lidded eyes on the arena. First Impressions of Earth sees the formerly concise New York quintet stretching out with frilly guitar solos, because-we-can time-signature shifts and a new producer, David Kahne, who has a proven track record getting bands like Sugar Ray and Sublime played on pop radio. (First item on Kahne’s agenda: scrub Julian Casablancas’ vocals of their signature distortion.) Where 2003’s excellent Room on Fire found the band in a holding pattern after stellar debut Is This It, The Strokes’ latest attempts a bold new statement.

To be sure, First Impressions of Earth holds some surprises for listeners expecting yet another set of streamlined downtown rock. First single “Juicebox” is the band’s heaviest yet, setting hoarse screams over an ominous, detective-show guitar riff previously lit in Weezer’s “Hash Pipe.” The rock turns harder and darker on “Heart in a Cage,” on which guitarist Nick Valensi races through scales like a prog-metal hero. “We gotta live, live, live, live, live,” Casablancas sings. Conversely, the loungey “Evening Sun” sounds like The Strokes abandoning their Lower East Side dives for merlot and smoking jackets someplace uptown. “Fifteen Minutes” leans slurringly toward The Pogues’ pub rock, complete with traces of brogue. “Vision of Divison” starts with the bombast of an ’80s monster ballad—“All that I do is wait for you”—before diverting into a Middle Eastern-tinged jam. Clearly, The Strokes aren’t confining themselves to three-minutes-and-out anymore.

Despite these new splashes of color, The Strokes paint from their usual palette, too. It helps that prior producer Gordon Raphael helms three tracks. Uptempo songs like “You Only Live Once” and “Electricityscape” still feature the ringing-guitar style The Strokes share with New York bands like The Walkmen and the French Kicks. “On the Other Side” is anchored by a disco beat straight off a Casio pre-set as Casablancas muses, perhaps half-heartedly, “I’m tired of being so judgmental of everyone.” The album’s best song, “Razor Blade,” uses more shimmering guitar work but builds into a chorus so affecting it’s hard to mind that it’s nicked from Barry Manilow’s “Mandy,” of all things.

Trouble is, by the time they’re through brandishing quotations, The Strokes don’t have much of their own to say here. They even admit it. “I’ve got nothing to say,” Casablancas confides over Mellotron-like accompaniment on the album’s biggest departure, “Ask Me Anything,” which sounds like the pop-in-a-box of early Magnetic Fields, right down to Stephin Merrit’s flat vocals. Awash in once-uncharacteristic reverb, “Fear of Sleep” slowly repeats its title enough times to actually warrant it. Meanwhile, if “Juicebox” is The Strokes’ “Hash Pipe,” “The Ize of the World” is their “Island In The Sun,” but its pacific guitars give way to crescendo-ing choruses that mindlessly rhyme words ending in “-ize” until cutting off mid-word on “vaporize.” On jaunty closer “Red Light,” Casablancas complains about “a generation that has nothing to say.” He can speak for himself, but it seems any bold new statements will have to wait.

I’ve walked away from shows feeling cheated. I’ve walked away from shows impressed beyond belief. I’ve walked away from shows thinking, “I could do that.” But I’ve rarely walked away from a show as early as 11:15 p.m.

True, I expected a longer set from The Strokes, but I didn’t expect a better one. Throughout the night, the New York five-piece proved to the crowd at the sold-out Tabernacle that it was worth the hype. From the moment drummer Fabrizio Moretti and bassist Nikolai Fraiture started “Reptilia,” it was clear the simultaneously raucous and calculated sound The Strokes have become known for on their records is not just the result of good production and engineering. The rhythm section, together with the sometimes-boisterous, sometimes-mathematical work of guitarists Nick Valensi and Albert Hammond Jr., created a tightly knit musical backdrop for singer Julian Casablancas’ scratchy but soaring vocals. The frontman was dead-on, alleviating concerns he would repeat his trademark drunken behavior. Thankfully, Casablancas’ worst offense during the performance was that his between-song banter sounded suspiciously like Rocky Balboa.

The Strokes’ songs might be mechanical in some respects, but performed live, they somehow manage to come across with greater emotional depth. Energetic tunes like “Take It Or Leave It,” the aforementioned “Reptilia,” “The End Has No End,” and the insanely catchy single “12:51” called less attention to their flawless delivery than to the intensity of Casablancas’ voice. The tight rhythm section, deceptively simple chord progressions and expressive vocals on mellower songs like “Under Control” and “Alone Together” sounded like 21st century takes on classic Motown ballads and, as premeditated as some of their albums were, I don’t think anyone would argue that Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye were lacking any emotion.

The band mainly performed material from its new album Room On Fire, but it also delivered a few tracks off most fans’ radars. The first was “Modern Girls,” a new song the band recorded with opener (and fellow New Yorker) Regina Spektor while on a tour break in Seattle. As interesting as a duet with a female vocalist could have been, the song itself was fairly bland, and Spektor’s shrill voice was no match for Casablancas’ crooning. The second was “New York City Cops,” a song originally on the debut LP Is This It, but pulled at the last second from the album’s U.S. release because it was feared the chorus —“New York City cops, they ain’t too smart”—would seem insensitive after Sept. 11. Honestly, the track is probably better left on the cutting room floor—it wasn’t great live and Is This It is a tighter album without it.

Those few speed bumps aside, the show was a perfect example of what a concert should be: tight, energetic, and filled with a sense that there’s something bigger going on than just five sharply-dressed guys playing rock’n’roll songs. Even if only for an hour.