During a long Strokes lay-of, Julian Casablancas has barely been heard about in comparison to Albert Hammond Jr, who has released two solo albums during The Strokes down time. Still Julian can be heard on Queens of the Stone Age's 'Sick, Sick, Sick' and The Lonely Islands' 'Boombox'. Although Casablancas, has gave us something different in 'Phrazes For The Young' from the garage rock revivalists style in The Strokes.
Julian Casablancas has always shown he's a bit eccentric, rehab at 14 would clearly prove that. But 'Phrazes For The Young' is not Indie Rock, it's not Garage Rock and it's certainly not Rock N' Roll either... it's electronic simply, with the added pop vibe. 'Out Of The Blue' is the opener and is full of quirky lyrics and in usual Casablancas style he groans out lyrics like 'Least I'll be in another world, while you're pissing on my casket' and this suggests that Casablancas is still sarcastic and dull as ever, which is what we like to see.
Going back to the electronic pop vibe, songs that follow 'Out Of The Blue', being 'Left & Right In The Dark' and '11th Dimension' demonstrate exactly that. In 'Left & Right In The Dark' the simple poppy synthesizer beats at the start of the song will make it's listeners think 'Hell... this is not what I expected' but it's Julian Casablancas, no one knows what to expect... literally. '11th Dimension' soon follows and it's warm and welcoming embrace soon charms it's listeners into loving the catchy synth's and the eye fluttering guitar riff that passes now and then through-out the song. Lyrically, Casablancas shows up again with lines like 'Where cities come together to hate each other in the name of sport'. Coming to the middle section of this short album, which totals a number of eight songs coming in at 38 minutes long, '4 Chords Of The Apocalypse' a nice slow melody based on a tapping drum beat and electronic organ which oozes a bluesy lonely feeling as it's song title suggests quite plainly.
Criticism for 'Phrazes For The Young' would come in 'River Of Breaklights' and 'Glass' which are just a little boring to be harsh, and a little dragged out, but they don't stray much from the other songs in terms of the album as a whole in sound. The secret highlight of the album would be in 'Ludlow St.' which sounds like a psychedelic waltz of The Doors album 'Waiting For The Sun', being precise, it takes a bow to 'Love Street' with it's romantic lost feelings and twirling music.
A pleasant surprise Casablancas has given us, 'Phrazes For The Young' is full of startling gems and will not be taken to seriously and will not effect the potential Strokes recording in 2010, but would we really mind if he just decided to make another solo record? Probably not.
3½ / 5
Linus Broadbent.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment