The Strokes
The New Abnormal
Release Date: Apr 10, 2020
Genre(s): Pop/Rock, Alternative/Indie Rock
Record label: RCA
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Album Review: The New Abnormal by The Strokes
Very Good, Based on 10 Critics
Based on rating 9/10
Though the Strokes have cultivated a cooler-than-cool reputation over the years, at least once on every album they reveal the melancholy underneath the facade. On Room on Fire, that moment was "The End Has No End"; on First Impressions of Earth, it was "Ize of the World." For the first time in their career, on The New Abnormal they stay in that emotional space for more than just a song or two, and the results are some of their most rewarding music. Fair warning: the band's sixth album is short on the rockers for which they're famous.
Based on rating 4.5/5
Even if The Strokes never released another note of good music again, history would still remember them as the band who changed everything. Strolling into view as the millennial bells clanged a new era into existence, they gifted the world with flawless debut 'Is This It' before 2001 was out and inspired a new, invigorated tribe in their wake. From dishevelled head down to Converse-clad toe, you can thank Julian, Nick, Albert, Nikolai and Fab for basically every good indie band that's come since.
Based on rating 8.5/10
Heralded as the noughties saviours of Rock and Roll, The Strokes were at the crest of the wave of new bands emerging from the New York Scene. Whether they deserved their lofty status was beside the point, it became the benchmark against which they were measured. Following their 2001 debut the band fell into an all too familiar arc; headline tours, substance abuse and in fighting until their presence waned to the point that after 2016s Future Present Past EP the prospect of new material seemed more and more unlikely.
Based on rating 8/10
The Strokes will always have a complicated legacy. They came out of the gates with the single defining statement in 2000s guitar rock, and in the nearly 20 years since everything they have done has been compared to Is This It. I told a friend that I was reviewing the new Strokes record, the first in seven years, and the only reaction I heard was, “Is it as good as Is This It?” This is all to say, if all you are looking for from The Strokes’ latest offering is a retread of Is This It, you will be disappointed.
Based on rating 6/10
It's been almost two decades since a quintet of international boarding school kids in New York came out with their first record. Those kids were Julian Casablancas, Nikolai Fraiture, Albert Hammond Jr., Fabrizio Moretti, and Nick Valensi; the band was The Strokes; and the album, Is This It, lived up to the hyperbolic praise it received on release. It was 2001, and critics wondered aloud if The Strokes could save rock and roll from the dregs of grunge.
Based on rating 3
Rejoice! The most frustrating band of all time are back. If this were any other band, at any other time in history, we would not be talking about this album. The reason we are talking about The New Abnormal is down to the amount of goodwill afforded to The Strokes because of the quality of their debut album, Is This It. That record kicked off a movement, changed the playing field, &c.
Based on rating 6/10
The New Abnormal is an apt descriptor for where the Strokes stand at this point in their career. The band has officially been in this current state – a sometimes dazzling, often frustrating experiment in playing with fan expectation – for longer than they were heralded as NYC rock saviours. This is who they are now, and we'd all better get used to it. As with pretty much every Strokes record since 2005's First Impressions of Earth, serious fans will find things to love about The New Abnormal. There are plenty of good – or at least interesting – songs, but they tend to overstay their welcome, meandering when they should sprint. There's a tighter, better album hiding somewhere in these nine tracks..
Based on rating 5.7/10
Just as the clock struck midnight on a new decade, Julian Casablancas delivered the news that Strokes fans had been waiting to hear. "The 2010s, whatever the fuck they're called, we took 'em off," he announced at the band's New Year's Eve show in Brooklyn. "And now we've been unfrozen and we're back." No matter where the last 10 years have left you--Angles defender, Voidz apologist, Meet Me in the Bathroom nostalgist who gave up hope a long time ago--it was easy to feel a trickle of excitement.
Opinion: Excellent
T he Strokes are back, and this time nobody likes them. At least, that's the impression frontman Julian Casablancas seems keen to impart on the band's sixth album. "All my friends left, and they don't miss me," he moans, like Toby Young for the ageing-hipsters-with-directional-mullets crowd.
Opinion: Great
The Lowdown: During The Strokes' New Year's Eve show at the Barclay Center last December, singer Julian Casablancas made the following declaration: "The 2010s, whatever the fuck they're called, we took 'em off. And now we've been unfrozen and we're back." It was the most direct rejection yet of the forced and fractious process behind mildly received records like 2011's Angles and 2013's Comedown Machine. While those records have their share of admirers, they're also ones that the band now describe as being made out of contractual obligation and not, as Casablancas put it to The Guardian's Alexis Petridis, "out of pure brotherly love or musical inspiration." Now, if we're to believe it, things have swung in the other direction.
'The New Abnormal'
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