{"id":830783,"date":"2026-07-28T05:55:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T05:55:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/830783\/"},"modified":"2026-07-28T05:55:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T05:55:08","slug":"the-strokes-reality-awaits-album-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/830783\/","title":{"rendered":"The Strokes: Reality Awaits Album Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lately, Casablancas has been trying hard to be heard, but he\u2019s incapable of expressing a political opinion without ironic padding. Anyone expecting a Rage Against the Machine<\/a> turn after the Strokes\u2019 anti-imperialist 2026 Coachella performance<\/a> of \u201cOblivius\u201d should recall that Casablancas joked to some Oxford students<\/a> a couple months later that he thought the bold agitprop stage design would be \u201ca treat that influencers would really appreciate.\u201d And Casablancas\u2019 viral \u201cSubway Takes\u201d assertion<\/a> that \u201cAmerican Zionists get the benefits of white privileged people but talk like they are Black people during slavery\u201d came only after he excoriated voice memos and modern cars. Deeply aware of the inseparability of medium and the message, Casablancas rues the internet\u2019s flattening effect on communication while encouraging you to Use This Sound. Reality Awaits sits inside that tension, fully aware of the bit, both sonically and lyrically. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it results in the Strokes\u2019 loosest, funniest, and best album since before Facebook launched\u2014which, sure, given the wildly varying quality of the band\u2019s last four albums, feels like damning with faint praise. But it\u2019s also a welcome acknowledgement that the Strokes finally seem comfortable dovetailing their festival-headlining elder-statesmen status with Casablancas\u2019 desire to meet the techno-political moment on his terms.<\/p>\n

Casablancas\u2019 tongue-in-cheek radicalism resonates with Gen Z, who are increasingly intolerant of U.S. imperialism<\/a>\u2014and who generated a fresh era for the band by meming<\/a> the anti-authoritarian lockdown-era single \u201cThe Adults Are Talking\u201d into the Strokes\u2019 most-streamed song. The band elaborates their new shtick on \u201cThe Fruits of Conquest,\u201d the first half of which is slinky and confident, sounding like the Strokes\u2019 early 2000s contemporaries Spoon<\/a>, with Casablancas growling, \u201cThey don\u2019t obey, so we won\u2019t obey.\u201d Then, as the second half grows darker and more self-effacing, he moans \u201cI\u2019m a leech,\u201d over and over, letting his trademark self-doubt overwhelm the song for a minute. Close your eyes and it\u2019s easy to imagine a sea of festival attendees who were born after First Impressions of Earth<\/a> chanting both phrases with equal fervor, or constructing new TikTok rabbit warrens out of them. Grotesque impulses pervade the album, like how on \u201cDine N\u2019Dash\u201d he worms his way toward Idiot<\/a>-era Iggy Pop<\/a> loucheness, \u201cLiar\u2019s Remorse\u201d stretches romantic repentance into psychedelic territory, and \u201cTyrants of the Mellow Moon,\u201d with Casablancas in sad-robot Roy Rogers mode, is the album\u2019s best evocation of its deconstructed cigarette ad<\/a> cover art.<\/p>\n

But of course, the Strokes can only experiment so much: Though Casablancas would prefer to minimize this fact, they\u2019re as much a reliable brand as a band, having taken full ownership of a sound that, ironically, itself once felt like an uncanny synthesis of the 1976-1982 dance\/punk moment. So hearing slight variations on their sonic signature in 2026\u2014tight guitar harmonizing, quick downstrumming, a disco band\u2019s rhythm section, Casablancas\u2019 arty hangdog moue\u2014can feel like the Strokes covering the Strokes. On Reality, \u201cGoing to Babble On\u201d and especially \u201cLonely in the Future\u201d are the umpteenth updates on the band\u2019s Mk 1 coke-bump new wave. \u201cFuture\u201d is the clearest candidate for viral circulation on the album, Casablancas rummaging through pop culture references like Ezra Koenig<\/a>, namedropping the liberal U.S. foreign policy critic Chris Hedges, confusing Josh Groban and John Legend, and licking shots at YouTube music critic Anthony Fantano (who\u2019s already responded<\/a>). Over the glammy power-pop of \u201cBabble,\u201d the admonition \u201cDon\u2019t ever do what they say\u201d feels aimed as much at his record industry bosses as the global power bloc. Either way, his stylish exhaustion reveals itself each time he croons that he\u2019s \u201cstarting again.\u201d<\/p>\n