Unlike so many instantly iconic rock phenomena before them, the Strokes didn’t so much turn boring as frustrating. From 2006’s First Impressions of Earth onward, they’ve sounded like a band constantly second-guessing itself—one that knows it has to evolve beyond a signature sound, but unwilling to commit to a direction. That erratic behavior has extended to frontman Julian Casablancas’ sideline pursuits, whether it as a Daft Punk-approved synth-pop singer or polarizing prog-punk provocateur. But the solo career of guitarist Albert Hammond Jr. has emerged as a beaming ray of light poking through these turbulent skies—as his main band sounds more confused with each new album, his own songwriting has turned more precise and concise.
That said, the refinement in Hammond’s work is less a reaction to the Strokes than the result of significant changes in his personal life. In contrast to the art-pop aspirations that fuelled his first two solo albums, Hammond’s 2013 EP, AHJ, was a slight, scrappy four-song affair. But it bore the weight of considerable baggage: he spent much of the record’s press cycle coming clean about going clean, kicking a prolonged addiction to cocaine, heroin, and ketamine he claimed was draining him of $2,000 a week. If AHJ was a tentative toe-dip back into solo recording, Momentary Masters is a confident full-body dive.
Like its predecessor, the new album isn’t afraid to draw comparisons to Hammond’s day job; rather than try to establish an identity separate from the Strokes, it reasserts the carefree charm and hooky immediacy that’s gotten lost amid the band’s latter-day experimentation. And unlike, say, Angles or Comedown Machine, Momentary Masters manages to inject a little funk and finesse into the Strokes’ wiry rock schematic without forcing the issue, interlocking Hammond’s signature, spidery fills with "Tetris"-tight rhythms that will have you double-checking the liner notes to see if Nikolai Fraiture and Fabrizio Moretti were recruited for the record. (They were not—that’s AHJ-era touring bassist Jordan Brooks and drummer Jeremy Gustin doing the yeoman’s work.)
For an album reportedly inspired by Carl Sagan, the 10-song, 36-minute Momentary Masters is remarkably lean and focused. The title refers to the famed astronomer’s description of our infinitesimal standing in the universe at large; it could also scan as a comment on the Strokes’ own experience as one-time hype magnets, and the struggle to stay relevant after the spotlight points somewhere else. "Sometimes, the sun goes behind the clouds/ You’ll forget the warmth that could be found," he laments on the opening "Born Slippy"—not a cover of the Underworld classic, but perhaps an oblique, cautionary evocation of that track’s hedonistic Trainspotting associations. If the song draws from the same well of influences as the Strokes—the chorus is even underpinned by a rewrite of the "Marquee Moon" riff—Hammond forsakes Casablancas’ disaffected cool for a down-to-earth humility befitting of a former next big thing, and the seize-the-day urgency of a recovering addict who no longer takes anything for granted. And just when you think you’ve got a handle on the song’s A/B structure, Hammond introduces subtle but substantial changes—a pointillist guitar-solo breakdown, new variations on the chorus melody—that transform the song’s scale from modest to majestic.
At the outset, Momentary Masters suggests a parallel history for the Strokes if they had signed to DFA instead of RCA, with the louche groove and synthesized disco strings of "Power Hungry" bridging the early-2000s divide between L.E.S. rock dives and Williamsburg warehouse parties. The album even boasts a spiritual successor to "Losing My Edge" in "Losing Touch", though, buoyed by the song’s spirited new-wave sprint and towering chorus, Hammond sounds happy to be leaving hipsterdom behind. That sentiment is reinforced in more plaintive fashion on a drum-machined cover of Bob Dylan’s "Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright", which initially seems like an outlier on the album, but proves to be its thematic centerpiece. Embracing the song’s don’t-look-back sentiment, Hammond blazes through Momentary Masters’ breathless second half with a series of direct-hit power-pop pick-me-ups that channels the guttersnipe grittiness of vintage Strokes—from the double-timed "Modern Age" stomp of "Razors Edge" to the "I Can’t Win" echoes of "Side Boob"—but with a tuneful flamboyance that reminds you Hammond is the biggest Guided by Voices fan in the group. (And, no doubt, Bob Pollard would approve of a nonsensically evocative title like "Drunched in Crumbs".) "Now that we’re not perfect, we have to be good," Hammond sings on "Touché", like someone who’s being extra-careful to not squander their second lease on life, but who’s liberated from the pressures and anxieties that drive one to bad habits in the first place. As the song’s taut rhythmic drive loosens into a gloriously goofy chicken-scratched guitar solo, Hammond reinforces the notion that, while rock'n'roll may be the gateway to a lifetime of vice, it can also be the most effective form of rehab.
