When The Strokes kicked off the garage rock revival in New York at the turn of the millennium, it seemed like they were on their way to becoming a permanent part of the 21st century's musical canon. Here we are, only eight years later, and although the boys from the Lower East Side have been working in the studio together again, it seems that all five of members of the band have moved in very different musical directions.
Lead singer Julian Casablancas' first solo record, "Phrazes for the Young," released earlier this month, takes its title from Oscar Wilde's collection of epigrams instructing readers how to live. Casablancas attempts to do the same: On the album opener, "Out of the Blue," he tells the young, "all you got to do is sit there, look great and make them horny," and on the second track, "Left and Right in the Dark," he warns that "nothing much gets easier in the final stages." These lyrics, laid over synthesizers and electric drumbeats, are a far cry from the guitar noodling and lyrics like "I've got nothing to say" on the last Strokes record, "First Impressions of Earth" (2006).
Whereas the first two Strokes records were often compared to grungy New York predecessors like The Velvet Underground and Television, "Phrazes" leans away from Lou Reed and more toward Brian Eno. "First Impressions" featured more keyboards than the Strokes' first two records, but came nowhere close to the synthesized sound Casablancas adopts on his first solo record.
"Phrazes" is musically all over the place. Several tracks wouldn't sound out of place on a Phoenix record, while "4 Chords of the Apocalypse" sounds like a rejected Jack White song to which Casablancas and producer Jason Lader added some swirling, ambient sounds. While Casablancas' signature whiskey-soaked moan remains the same, he no longer has to fight for space with the guitar runs of Strokes' rhythm guitarist Albert Hammond Jr. and lead guitarist Nick Valensi. While the record is musically hit-or-miss, here at least Casablancas' voice is the center of attention.
On lyrical standout "Ludlow St.," the singer laments the new occupations of the Lower East Side hangout, moving from "the Lenapes tribe" to the "yuppies" who have "invaded." Although Casablancas is not from one of the working-class families that used to inhabit this neighborhood, he feels it's his duty to bemoan the casualties of New York's gentrification. "History's fading and it's hard to just move along," he sings over an out-of-place banjo, and whether he's referring to switching neighborhoods or moving into a solo career is unclear.
Casablancas seems to feel that he's reached a point in his career where he's been through it all and is trying to offer words of wisdom to those moving in and changing the scene around him. Nearly a decade ago, the New York scene overflowed with drunk hipsters moaning about being drunk hipsters. Now, New York music is being defined by arugula-eating, twittering, experimental bands like Grizzly Bear and the Dirty Projectors who hail from hipster Brooklyn as opposed to the yuppified Lower East Side. Perhaps Casablancas is trying to hold onto his status as an elder statesman of the New York rock scene, but he comes across more like a bored grown-up who has lost track of what used to make his music fun.
In a recent interview with the Village Voice, Casablancas confessed that he was never interested in making a solo record until he found out that his bandmates were doing so. Maybe that reluctance is why "Phrazes" is ultimately a disappointment. The casual tropicalia and sweet harmonies of drummer Fabrizio Moretti's side band Little Joy, as well as the slick, bluesy rock 'n' roll of Hammond Jr.'s two solo records, are much more successful project by Strokes members gone solo.
