{"id":508505,"date":"2026-06-19T20:40:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T20:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/508505\/"},"modified":"2026-06-19T20:40:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T20:40:08","slug":"albert-hammond-jr-explains-delay-of-the-strokes-new-album-reality-awaits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/508505\/","title":{"rendered":"Albert Hammond Jr. explains delay of The Strokes’ new album ‘Reality Awaits’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Albert Hammond Jr.<\/a>\u00a0has shared an explanation for why the release of\u00a0The Strokes<\/a>\u2019 new album \u2018Reality Awaits\u2019 has been delayed.<\/p>\n

The New York indie icons have been preparing to release their seventh\u00a0studio album, with its original date\u00a0having been set\u00a0for June 26. However, last week (June 11),\u00a0the band announced that it had been pushed back to July 24<\/a>, without\u00a0providing their reasoning. Pre-order the record\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Now, guitarist Hammond has shed some light on the decision. In a since-deleted response to a fan on X, he explained\u00a0that they decided to\u00a0shift it four weeks later\u00a0because they wanted the streaming release date to match that of the vinyl release. In his comments, he also said\u00a0he thinks the music on the album sounds like that made by a \u201cweird, young band\u201d.<\/p>\n

Hammond has also released a new track with the indie rock artist\u00a0KennyHoopla<\/a>, titled \u2018NEW AMERICA\/\/\u2019,\u00a0a stomping, \u201800s dance punk-influenced track. Listen here:<\/p>\n

Hammond\u2019s comments on the\u00a0new music\u00a0echo what he said last month, when\u00a0he referred to \u2018Reality Awaits\u2019 as his \u201cfavourite album\u201d that The Strokes have ever made<\/a>. \u201cI can\u2019t express how beautiful it is,\u201d he said. \u201cI listen to the whole thing and wanna start from the beginning again. It grows and grows and becomes intoxicatingly good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those words followed some\u00a0pushback\u00a0from Strokes fans to the early singles \u2018Going Shopping<\/a>\u2019 and \u2018Falling Out Of Love<\/a>\u2019, with some complaining about\u00a0Julian Casablancas<\/a>\u2019 use of\u00a0vocoder .<\/p>\n

NME\u00a0gave\u00a0\u2018Going Shopping\u2019 a three-star review<\/a>\u00a0and described it as a song that \u201cdoesn\u2019t feel bold\u201d but also \u201cdoes avoid playing anything safe.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou couldn\u2019t definitively place its sound on any of The Strokes\u2019 previous six albums, but the lack of spirit and tenacity \u2013 save for a guitar solo at the end \u2013 is noticeable,\u201d the review read. \u201c\u2018If\u00a0you\u2019re\u00a0better than me you\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0have to judge me\u2019,\u00a0signs off Casablancas, with an imaginary raised eyebrow. But\u00a0perhaps even\u00a0he would admit that The Strokes are better than this.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Strokes have already played at\u00a0Coachella<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Bonnaroo<\/a>, and have\u00a0a huge tour to come that takes in the UK, North America, Europe and Japan<\/a>. It will be their first full run of headline dates in the UK and Ireland in over 20 years, and it includes stops at London\u2019s O2. Support will come from Thundercat<\/a>,\u00a0Cage the Elephant<\/a>,\u00a0Hamilton Leithauser<\/a>,\u00a0Fat White Family<\/a>, Alex Cameron and \u00d6L\u00dcM, and\u00a0more dates have been added<\/a>\u00a0due to huge demand.<\/p>\n

They have also announced\u00a0a huge New York show with Beach House, TV On The Radio and Fcukers<\/a>\u00a0at Flushing Meadows Corona Park on October 2.\u00a0Find any remaining tickets\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

All of these shows will see The Strokes perform without guitarist Nick Valensi, as the band confirmed recently that he\u00a0would be taking a \u201ctemporary break\u201d<\/a>\u00a0from playing live.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Albert Hammond Jr.\u00a0has shared an explanation for why the release of\u00a0The Strokes\u2019 new album \u2018Reality Awaits\u2019 has been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":508506,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[93,61,636,60,278],"class_list":["post-508505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-indie","tag-ireland","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=508505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/508506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=508505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=508505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=508505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}