Concept awaits: A realistic review of The Strokes’ newest experiment
Just over a month ago, The Strokes just broke a six-year streak of inactivity following the modern classic The New Abnormal with their new album Reality Awaits. The New Abnormal was the record that initially caught my interest in the band, specifically their track Bad Decisions. The whole album is all-killer-no-filler, and still is amongst my favorite albums more than halfway through the 2020s. How does one follow up perfection? The Strokes seem to respond to the age-old question by sticking to their guns and delivering a project that, while new, might feel the most familiar-sounding release out of any of their albums.
The most apparent feature of the album that links the projects together, outside of lyrical themes which will be discussed later, is the almost album-wide use of autotune. This can sound like a grating premise until it's realized that this has applied to many great artists throughout much of their catalogs, most notably T-Pain. The instrumentals are, as always for work by The Strokes, lush and polished in a way that doesn’t feel plastic, insincere, or artificial. The largest difference between this project and the rest of their catalog is an increased tendency to let songs breathe, with long drawn-out passages that fully embrace ambiance over punchiness.
The lyrics on this record, on the other hand, while not shying away from long prose, are often quite quippy. Most tracks share at least one very quotable or memorable line amongst their dense commentaries. The content covers a wide range of topics, most notably half-baked nostalgia’s allure fading in the midst of capitalism, the blurred lines between escapism and reality in such a society, and artificial intelligence, all through the lyrical commentary and controversial vocal processing. In this respect, the lead single Going Shopping is the best representative of this album.
Overall, while Reality Awaits is not an immediate fan favorite album by them and has taken time to grow in taste for most people, the decisions made on this record are competent and thoughtful. It's common for concept albums to get mixed feedback before the true nature of the concept gets wildly circulated, and it wouldn't be surprising if reception towards this record grows more positive with time. It might not advertise itself as such—and lacks the traditional narrative thread most of them have—but out of anything they’ve released, The Strokes sticks their guns out with Reality Awaits the most out of any of their releases. It's for better or for worse, but mostly for the better.
