Quite a few spindly young guitarists would sacrifice body parts to be the third-most-famous Stroke. I probably would, too-- not so much for the money, the girls or the chops, as to don Albert Hammond, Jr.'s upscale formalwear and Chia hair. But somehow, at least for him, it turns out there's actually more to life than clean, supporting fretwork and curl-enhancing conditioner.
With Yours to Keep, Hammond-- like legendary third-wheel George Harrison before him-- becomes the first of his group to strike off for solo glory. Fortunately, the album is more "Wonderwall" than Wonderwall Music, a set of slight, cosmopolitan babe-lair rock by a guitarist who (superfans, you can exhale now) apparently hasn't yet left his band. Still, don't let First Impressions of Earth's shredder-school frippery deter you: Hammond's rare solos, on songs like "Last Nite", "Under Control", and "Trying Your Luck", have always been concise and grammatical, and so is his debut album.
Hammond has given tunes to the Strokes before, mostly for 2001 tour video In Transit, but his prime non-instrumental contribution remains fan club-only giveaway "The Elephant Song", recorded in 1999 for a New York University class project. Yours to Keep could hardly be further from the scruffy rawk of that early demo, though the most evidently Strokes-like song here, "In Transit", does seem to repurpose its sticky riff. Instead, Hammond's solo outing is a spry if unexceptional pop charmer, less supercilious than Is This It or Room on Fire but almost as cool.
Yours to Keep affords the guitarist more stylistic freedom than the Strokes' unsmiling mien typically permits. Opener "Cartoon Music for Superheroes" is a Beach Boys lullaby with a teenage indie pop beat and syrupy sun-spangled instrumentation, while "Back to the 101" is top-down power-pop you'd expect from the New Pornographers. "Jamaica, ooh, I'm gonna take ya," Hammond jokes on balmy "Holiday", which is better than "Kokomo" but not as good as the equivalent Weezer anthem. Lead single "Everyone Gets a Star" distills most of the album's styles into a jealous new-wave piña colada with elegantly wasted vocals closest to those of his dayjob frontman.
At other times, like Air's JB Dunckel (aka Darkel) on yet another 2006 solo debut, Hammond displays a fondness for the most famous dead Beatle. Yep, the Stroke's vowels are as phlegmy as John Lennon's on the skiffle-like "Call an Ambulance", with whistling and falsetto la-la-las. More ragged plaints join horns and faux-British enunciation on languorous finale "Hard to Live (in the City)". Sean Lennon himself performs guest duties on the album, joined by Julian Casablancas, Ben Kweller, and the Mooney Suzuki's Sammy James Jr. Elsewhere, "Bright Young Thing" picks up "I Got You Babe" music-box sounds and splotchy drum machine, while foggy folk waltz "Blue Skies" is the best reminder that Albert Hammond Sr. was a singer/songwriter, too.
From the first chords of Is This It, the Strokes came into the world wearing the international rock crit kick-me sign of disgustingly spectacular privilege. Except on last year's effortful First Impressions of Earth, the Lower East Side rock flagbearers have rendered their elite upbringing appropriately irrelevant through equally disgustingly spectacular displays of fuck-you talent. On Yours to Keep, Hammond doesn't surpass his main gig's rock'n'roll peaks, but he's still exasperatingly above average. What do the rest of us gotta do?
