The Strokes
– The New Abnormal
Leave it to The Strokes to drop an album about existential burnout just as the world was collectively spiraling into its own. The New Abnormal doesn’t reinvent the band—it peels back the slick, coked-up leather of their early 2000s cool and swaps it for something looser, stranger, and quietly desperate. This isn’t a garage band playing dive bars anymore; it’s five men confronting their own aging mythologies with synths, space, and Julian Casablancas crooning like he’s both falling asleep and waking up at the same time.
Rick Rubin’s production gives the band room to sprawl, and boy do they take it. There’s less punch and more float. Tracks stretch out, shimmer, and stumble in slow motion. The guitars are still there, but often tucked beneath drum machines and vintage keyboards that wouldn’t feel out of place on a forgotten ’80s cassette in your uncle’s glove box. It’s dreamy, but not comforting. Melancholic, but not self-pitying. Like a party you stayed at too long because you didn’t want to go home.
Lyrically, Julian feels both detached and surgically precise. He’s not yelling about New York anymore—he’s dissecting memory, fame, and modern rot with a smirk and a sigh. It’s cold in places, but it’s earned. What makes The New Abnormal great isn’t just that the Strokes grew up—it’s that they didn’t pretend it was easy. They lean into the weirdness, the weariness, the vague horror of trying to care again. And somehow, it sounds more honest than ever.
Choice Tracks
At the Door
Zero drums, zero urgency, maximum dread. This is a synth funeral dirge with Julian delivering one of his most haunted vocals yet. It’s a slow collapse, and it’s beautiful in the same way a broken TV glowing in an empty room can be.
Bad Decisions
The most “Strokes” track on the album, filtered through a Billy Idol lens. It borrows liberally from ‘80s pop rock but injects enough nervous energy to keep it from being pure pastiche. It’s bratty, catchy, and oddly sincere.
Brooklyn Bridge to Chorus
If New Wave broke up with Indie Rock and made a playlist about it. Packed with synth stabs and twitchy rhythms, it’s a dance track for people staring at their phones. Julian’s vocal cracks mid-line feel more human than anything on Angles.
Selfless
A stunner. All gentle guitars and reverb-heavy longing. It’s one of Casablancas’s most vulnerable performances, like a ghost serenading an ex through a hotel wall. Soft but aching. You don’t expect it, and then it doesn’t leave.
Not the Same Anymore
The title says it all. A slow burn that moves like regret, with a sneaky hook buried under all that gloom. The band plays it patient, and Julian sounds like he’s trying to tell you something he should’ve said years ago.
The New Abnormal is The Strokes stepping into the weird middle years, embracing disillusionment with style. They’re not chasing youth—they’re documenting its aftermath. It’s a hangover album. And sometimes, those are the ones that tell you the most truth.