BLACK ICE GLITTER VINYL

Listening to the albums the Strokes released in the 2020s, it's hard to believe they were ever associated with back-to-basics rock. On The New Abnormal, they channeled indulgence into brilliance, delivering a career peak that held its sprawling songs together through sheer passion. Though Reality Awaits takes a similarly maximalist approach to similar themes -- corruption, regret, aging, nostalgia -- the results aren't as rewarding.

Recorded with Abnormal producer Rick Rubin in Costa Rica (a locale hinted at by the hand drums and tropical slink of "Fruits of Conquest"'s enjoyably loopy disco-rock), Reality Awaits sounds like it was created in a vacuum where nobody said no to the band. Though the Strokes' drive to reject simplicity is admirable, they spend a fair amount of time getting in their own way. The heavy use of AutoTune on Julian Casablancas' vocals may intend to convey a sense of wobbly alienation, but on "Falling Out of Love," it obscures a beautiful melody and some of the album's most meaningful lyrics ("Some things are flawed by design/But I'm fine/For the first time") almost completely.

Casablancas sounds distractingly rumpled even on tighter songs like "Going to Babble On," one of a pair of songs that subverts the Strokes' classic sound by dialing down the energy. The other, "Going Shopping," captures a numbed-out consumerist wasteland cleverly; when Casablancas muses on getting older and notes that "solidarity can be difficult when you've got cool stuff to lose," it's wryly endearing. Here and on the reflections of "Lonely in the Future," the Strokes express the malaise and disaffection of the 2020s without boring their listeners. For an album that often sounds laid-back, Reality Awaits is surprisingly demanding of its audience, with rambling tracks such as "Tyrants of the Mellow Moon" fizzling out before going anywhere interesting.

Fortunately, there are several moments where it feels like the band has something on the line. The way "Psycho Shit"'s opening lament builds to skyscraping heights, the irony of Casablancas' agonized wail of "things are going great!" on "DineNDash," and the endless cycle of heartache on "Liar's Remorse" all serve as reminders of how exciting the Strokes are at their best. Though Is This It and The New Abnormal were frequently worlds apart musically, they both had a spirit that, sadly, isn't always present here. At once overdone and undercooked, Reality Awaits often embodies its feelings of frustration and dissatisfaction all too well.

A1        Psycho Shit
A2        Dine N’Dash
A3        Lonely in the Future
A4        Falling out of Love
B1        Going to Babble On
B2        Going Shopping
B3        Liar’s Remorse
B4        The Fruits of Conquest
B5        Tyrants of the Mellow Moon