Reality Awaits: Strokes' Best Album in Years
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- The Strokes released 'Reality Awaits,' their seventh album and first in six years, which the reviewer calls their best album in years.
- Julian Casablancas fuses his Voidz-era 'crackpot strangeness' and fondness for AutoTune with the Strokes' minimalism and pop melodicism, delivering some of his 'funniest, most interesting performances in years.'
- The Voidz are described as a 'great, crowd-pleasing, safely experimental zone' for Casablancas, with their 2018 album 'Virtue' called a high point of his entire catalogue.
- 'Going to Babble On' is highlighted as one of the most winsome, heartfelt Strokes songs since their 2001 debut 'Is This It,' with Casablancas singing sweetly about 'starting again.'
- 'Going Shopping' rides an insistent yacht rock groove while Casablancas sings about being a 'seven-foot zombie,' with Nick Valensi's guitar building in intensity throughout.
- 'Tyrants of the Mellow Moon,' the album's closer, is criticized as 'formless and ambling' — the one track where Casablancas's Voidz side threatens to eclipse his Strokes identity.
- 'The New Abnormal' (2020) is identified as the definitive Strokes album for gen Z, with younger fans notably lighting up during 'The Adults Are Talking' at live shows.
Why it matters: The review reframes the Strokes from what Casablancas's longtime fans feared was a 'cash-grab project' into a band with 'a whole lot more road left to explore.' That tonal shift — from side-project inertia to a genuinely playful, tuneful reinvention — reframes Casablancas's dual-band career as complementary rather than competitive, and gives the band's legacy a credible new chapter.
