C-wod.com

The Strokes took a two-year hiatus after the release of their second album, Room On Fire, but they are back with their third album First Impressions Of Earth. Now, before I bought the album, I had heard many different things. ‘This is a new direction for the Strokes,’ they should have stuck to their roots,’ and this is their best album yet.’ I don’t agree with any of the aforementioned. While some tracks are a little experimental, for the most part they are the same Strokes. What roots are you talking about, they have their own sound and they can do whatever they want with it. This is not the Strokes best album, but it very close. There is not really an album from the Strokes that you can point to and say this is the best. I am going to give First Impressions Of Earth a 9, which is lower then the tens I gave to their previous album. I am not even close to saying this is a bad album, it might even be better then other albums, but I just think there were a few flaws. Like I did with the Weezer’s last album, I am going to break down each track.

1) You Only Live Once Classic Strokes at their best. This song could have easily been on any one of their other albums.

2) Juicebox This is the first single off the album, but it probably would not have been my choice for the first single. It features a great bass line and a great drum line. Julian strays a bit from his typical vocals with a few lines of screaming. I don’t necessarily agree with what he was trying to do here.

3) Heart In A Cage Very similar to You Only Live Once, except it is better. It’s probably the second best song on the album.

4) Razorblade Perhaps my favorite song the Strokes have ever done. I mean it’s perfect, very funny lyrics, great guitar rhythm and booming drums. I would expect this to be their next single, but you never know with the Strokes.

5) On The Other Side Very slow paced, much like Is This It, except with more anger. These are probably my favorite lyrics from Julian. I can’t say that I have not been there.

6) Vision Of Division Like on Juicebox, Julian seems to be straining a bit. Great transitions in tempo, even though it seems like the instrumentals and the vocals clash at times.

7) Ask Me Anything This is probably where some of their critics came up with the idea that this is a totally new direction for the band. The guitar or synthesizer or something is very repetitive and very strange sounding. Julian also repeats the phase I’ve got nothing to say with great consistency. It is an experimental song where Julian is lashing back at his critics who say that he is not lyrically sophisticated and all their songs sound the same. Even though I don’t like it, it was a song that the album needs.

8) Electricityscape A song that pitchfork seemed to be a fan of, I’m not really sure if that’s a good thing. They say that this is one of the stand out’s on the album because of it’s no-nonsense rhythm section that keeps the song concise and focused.

9) Killing Lies Julian again slows down his lyrics to a crawling pace and the guitar is very repetitive. Probably the worst song on the album.

10) Fear Of Sleep A little repetitive with the chorus, but I love the percussion here.

11) Evening Sun Julian sounds like a drunk Irish guy that is just slurring all his words. For that reason, you have to love this one.

12) Ize Of The World Pitchfork called this a pointless track, but I like it. It features a great guitar solo, probably the best one of the album. Julian also seems to be trying to take a stab at as much of society that he can here, which I don’t mind. The song does catch you off guard though with its abrupt ending.

13) 15 Minutes I don’t know what they were doing here. Plain and simple this song should have been left off the album.

14) Red Light Another one of my personal favorites. Great driving percussion and guitar rhythms with an unusual direction for Julian’s lyrics.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.