Strokes fans, brace yourselves for a surprise: The guitarist from your favorite band, a man who, for years, has been lying in wait behind the ostentatious personality of lead singer Julian Casablancas, has just released a solo album. It appears that there is not only a personality difference between the two; Albert Hammond, Jr. also seems to have very different musical ambitions from Casablancas.
Produced by Greg Lattimer, "Yours to Keep," Albert Hammond, Jr.'s first solo effort, recalls the thoughtful indie rock of Death Cab for Cutie and The Shins more than The Strokes' hard-edged garage rock sound. But surprisingly, Hammond, the son of pop musician Albert Hammond, Sr., who scored himself a hit in the 1970s with "It Never Rains in Southern California," sounds right at home in this different genre, writing beautifully understated lyrics complimented by well-timed chord changes and artfully varied instrumentation.
The album's second track, "In Transit," indicates Hammond's knack for lyrical restraint. With a thick synthesizer and driving, throbbing bass line, Hammond sings the refrain: "By the way she looked, I should have calmed down/ I went too far, oh, that's all I've got to say." It is apparent throughout "Yours to Keep" that Hammond has a penchant for saying "all he's got to say" in very few words. This makes for powerfully scarce lyrics that lend themselves perfectly to Hammond's well crafted but simple music.
The only area in which the album falls short is in its choruses, or rather, lack thereof. For all its good qualities, "Yours to Keep" has few good hooks. You may find yourself humming a couple lines to yourself here and there, but very few choruses on this 10-song LP are poised to become indelibly engraved on your mind for days.
On "Bright Young Thing," for instance, Hammond delightfully strums the acoustic guitar during the verse while crooning his ?ber-indie lyrics: "You're pretty, won't you come play with me?" But when he gets to the chorus, the bass, drums, electric guitar and organ synth swell around him, and he sounds like he's going to burst into a rocking, sing-along chorus. Instead, every time he approaches what seems like a potentially climactic moment - growling the words, "Over and over and over and over again" - he lapses right back into a simple, lighthearted (but enjoyable) verse.
Lattimer, the lead singer of pop-punk band Thin Lizard Dawn, incorporates many different textures on the album, using chimes, synthesizers, ukuleles and piano sounds to augment the guitar-bass-drum trio that comprises Hammond's band. And, in an unexpected but welcome twist, the album's last track, "Hard to Live in the City," ends with a minute-and-a-half-long jazz trumpet solo.
"Yours to Keep," despite its refrains' lack of catchiness, is a very good as a whole. All together, its 10 songs compose a delightful, comprehensive piece of work. The songs all seem to go together, with Hammond's boyishly charming voice and playful songwriting unifying the album as a whole; at the same time, though, the songs vary significantly from one to the next. From the driving rockers "In Transit" and "101" to the sweet acoustic tunes "Blue Skies" and "Call an Ambulance," "Yours to Keep" drifts from the sublimely whimsical to the deeply emotional, but never loses itself along the way.
