The Strokes’ seventh album is here. The long-awaited ‘Reality Awaits’ has not had the most desirable rollout in the world, with its two previews receiving numerous criticisms, mainly directed at Julian Casablancas’ vocal effects. One of lime and the other of sand: the album is full of autotune, but also great songs like ‘Lonely In The Future’. It’s the Song of the Day.
The first 10 seconds of this song are a total bluff, but it doesn’t take us long to recognize our beloved band from New York. Totally fit, too. Between unmistakable guitar plays, Casablancas changes ‘Someday’ for ‘yesterday’ when singing about everything he has done in the past. It’s like when someone older sees a kid do something for the first time and has to let him know that he already did it “twenty fucking years ago.”
‘Lonely In The Future’ deals with one of the main themes of ‘Reality Awaits’: nostalgia. He does so by mentioning fashions (and his own songs) such as ‘YOLO’, artists such as John Legend or Josh Groban and specific memories, such as “the first date we had.” He also takes the opportunity to throw some beef at Fantano: “Stick with the technical, but you wouldn’t recognize art at any age.” To Harry Styles, whom he accuses of copying a beat: “That guy kept the beat “as it was.” And to The Weeknd for copying his style.
In the very tender ‘Going To Babble On’, Casablancas sings about “starting over”, or ‘Falling out of Love’, which fits much better into the context of the tracklist. This one has a little bit of everything and, although it’s not as immediate as ‘The New Abnormal’, which will continue to be a Gen Z favorite, it does feel like a more cohesive project. Anyway, many of these songs are clear growers.
The sound of the album and the structure of the songs, mutant in ‘Tyrants of The Mellow Moon’ or ‘The Fruits of Conquest’, are clearly influenced by The Voidz. The autotune, which is going to cause so many headaches, is not present in all the songs on the album, but when it is, it is not exactly subtle. The experimentation of Casablancas’ supporting group suits The Strokes well, with each song seeming unpredictable and able to change direction in split seconds.
Still, ‘Reality Awaits’ remains a totally pop-leaning album. Much more than what the first cut, the sinister ‘Psycho Shit’, anticipates. In this one, Casablancas sings about someone who kills his prey “from the nest” or from “behind a table”: “You have neither honor nor balls,” he says.
The Strokes have complemented their trip down memory lane by dusting off the title of the documentary ‘In Transit’, published in 2004 and built with material from the European tour of ‘Is This It’. On the eve of the 25th anniversary of their debut, the group has published ‘In Transit: Part II’ on YouTube, edited with images of them recording ‘Reality Awaits’ in Costa Rica.
