Whatever genius Julian Casablancas and company showed on Is This It, it’s gone.
Let’s get it out of the way: It’s easy to condemn Comedown Machine, the fifth album by The Strokes, right off the bat. First single “One Way Trigger” is a miserable A-ha homage. Second single “All The Time” feels phoned-in and ancient, like a hardly-relevant relic from the Room On Fire sessions.
Initial wafts of the production on opening track “Tap Out” suggest rock ‘n’ roll at its most mechanistic, like the band cut the record in a studio made of pure chrome, fretboards, microphones and even the band members themselves waxed to squeaky clean levels of purification. Forget the New York grime of Is This It; Julian Casablancas, Albert Hammond Jr., Nikolai Fraiture, Fabrizio Moretti and Nick Valensi have all become androids.
Sadly, for the most part, this assessment holds up.
“50/50,” similar to “Metabolism” off of 2011’s Angles, is all canned, contrived anger thanks to a hideous vocal turn from Casablancas. In fact, more than any Strokes record so far, Comedown Machine serves as a cold reminder of how incapable he is as a singer, frontman swagger aside. On Is This It and Room On Fire, his minimalist pipes nicely complemented the simplicity of the musical arrangements. Here, they serve as a counterpoint to all attempts at experimentation, his trademark smoke-cloud howl sounding frustratingly out of place and outdated.
Only on “Slow Animals,” a fine amalgamation of the two Strokes eras — homespun garage rock and glitzy, claustrophobic dance pop — does he successfully divert from his vocal formula. His falsetto isn’t perfect; it quivers and wavers with each note beyond his range. But here, the valiant effort pays off.
Sonically, Comedown Machine flirts with too many disparate ideas. There’s the sullen, night-drive synths of “Chances,” which sounds as if it could be a lazier, stuffier version of a Chromatics song. There’s the Candy-O guitars on “Happy Ending.” Hell, Casablancas even creates a cosmic fusion of Justin Timberlake and Jeff Lynne on the bizarre, oddly affecting closer “Call It Fate, Call It Karma.” Yet the experimentation clings more to the side of hodgepodge than anything.
Overall, Comedown Machine may not be a total throwaway record, but — coming only two years after the mediocre Angles — its presence is essentially futile.
One can attribute the sparseness of the band’s releases throughout the years to a lack of consistent inspiration. Its masterful debut, Is This It, was crafted on the principle that rock ‘n’ roll can be life-affirming — when done correctly. That’s a worthy rallying cry. Yet, a decade later, The Strokes sound too restless to remember, ultimately making Comedown Machine a hollow attempt at escaping the past.
diversionsdbk@gmail.com
