Strokes fans, rejoice. As first reported by Seattle rock station 107.7 The End and confirmed by Billboard, The Strokes plan to release an album this year. The new record would be the band's first since "Angles" came out in 2011.
"Previewing brand new Strokes [song] 'All the Time,'" wrote "Mike" on The End's Facebook page. "Thanks to RCA Records. We'll have to 'leak' this soon. You won't be disappointed."
Rumors of a new Strokes album have been circulating since 2011. "We have songs that you can tell are gonna be good ones (that) we're all excited to play," guitarist Albert Hammond Jr. told Billboard in April of 2011. "I don't know if we're the kind of band that would ever play something new before it came out, just the way the Internet works and people recording it. I think even if we had the whole record done, we wouldn't play it 'til the album was out."
Despite a killer lead single ("Under the Cover of Darkness"), many Strokes fans were disappointed in "Angles." Pitchfork gave the album a negative review, which included this gut-punch:
Throughout, the album is hobbled by disconnections-- between verse and chorus, lyrics and music, intent and execution. Casablancas' ambivalence about his own actions crops up often. On the ugly prog wannabe "Metabolism" he declares, "I wanna be outrageous/ But inside I know I'm plain." Disjointed closer "Life Is Simple in the Moonlight" has him confessing, "There's no one I disapprove of or root for more for than myself." And while the singer's singed self-loathing was present in the Strokes from the beginning, it was always tempered with music that provided some uplift. But on the sad-eyed and drum-less "Call Me Back", he's left to moan about how "no one has the time, someone's always late" against a single guitar and ethereal keyboard. Listening to the track, it's pretty easy to see why people may not be returning his calls.
For more on The Strokes new album, head over to Billboard.
[via Billboard]
