When Is This It landed in 2001, prognosticators claimed the Strokes would break big, reassert New York's post-punk primacy, and save rock and roll. One out of three ain't bad. Though early references were made to canonical art-rock legends such as Television and the Velvet Underground-- bands that achieved more popularity after disbanding than at their creative peaks-- the Strokes were superstars by comparison: Their debut sold more than 2 million copies worldwide; the Velvets wouldn't crack Billboard's top 100 albums chart until the release of 1985's posthumous VU. But that's where the glory fades: The Strokes simply ascended to mainstream acceptance, leaving a potential underdog rock legacy in the dust, and accruing a truckload of backlash in the process. So one can hardly blame them for cutting their losses and going for broke on their boorishly titled third album, First Impressions of Earth.
Here, the Strokes simultaneously settle into diminished expectations (delaying an album until just after Christmas = not screening a movie for film critics) and wildly ratchet up their sound, trying new things, getting weirder, but remaining true to the core of their sound. Though always inhumanly taut, the band has grown even tighter, and now plays with a precision that, while coldly machinelike at times, is impressive more often than not. On songs like "Juicebox" and the standout "Electricityscape", drummer Fab Moretti and bassist Nicolai Fraiture form a no-nonsense rhythm section that keeps these songs as concise and focused as possible. Albert Hammond and Nic Valensi, meanwhile, build a complex weapons system out of just two guitars, interlocking like Thundercats and launching short singsongy riffs that add tension and spark, particularly on tracks like "Heart in a Cage" and "Razorblade".
But if the group has grown deadlier and more dynamic in their five years together, singer Julian Casablancas still struggles as a lyricist. Perhaps dogged by persistent assertions that he has nothing to say, he finally cracks here, asserting that no one does. "Seven billion people got nothing to say," he moans on album closer "Red Light", "Are you coming on to me?" And leading up to that summary statement is an insistent defensiveness that curdles otherwise decent songs into tedious self-consciousness. On "Ask Me Anything", he admits, "I've got nothing to say", and tempers his cynicism with nonsense as proof: "Don't be a coconut/ God is trying to talk to you."
Of course, no one ever listened to the Strokes for deep insight into the human condition. They benefitted from being in the right place at the right time, coming into their own while the dominant trends of the late 90s were fizzling out. Just like many of the flannel-clad Seattle-ites of that decade (and, arguably, the spandex-sporting hair-metal bands of the 80s), the Strokes encapsulated numerous trends at once, projecting more meaning through their style and sound-- that scruffy hair, weathered denim, slouchy throwback punk-- than through their songs. And regardless of message, Casablancas has proven himself a large and important part of that appeal, for both his physical presence and his vocals, which remain ragged and loose in opposition to the band's rock-solid dynamic. On First Impressions, however, he seems eager to break the mold, but unsure how: On "Vision of Division" and "The Ize of the World", he strains harder, screaming through gritted teeth; "Heart in a Cage" and "Fear of Sleep" find him leaning too heavily on repetition of phrases that quickly become grating; during the Pogues-like stomp "Evening Sun", he fakes a Shane MacGowan accent for the first few lines before dropping the schtick altogether; and on "Ask Me Anything" and "On the Other Side", he makes this album the Strokes' loungiest to date.
A handful of these modifications are welcome as a change of pace, and at times make First Impressions sound prickly and confident. When the band is on, the songs attain the force and fury of previous outings. Unfortunately, the album is also clogged with a number of tracks that are as sloppy as titles like "The Ize of the World" and "Vision of Division" suggest. But the band's failures do, if nothing else, possess a certain schadenfreude, allowing a fascinating glimpse at a band futilely grasping in all directions for something new and meaningful, only to fumble with a half-fragment of unformed idea between its desperate fingers.
