The Strokes “Angles”

‘Under Cover Of Darkness’ was the perfect re-introduction to The Strokes; it wasn’t anti-climatic but it wasn’t hugely different from anything they’ve done before either. Instead it sounded like a band back in their comfort zone, working off the frustration and the five-year hiatus which makes a record like this even harder to put out. The track was a good way to ease everyone back into this but it turns out that the rest of the album strays in a better direction – the band’s traditional song structures (verse/chorus/bridge/verse etc) are still in place but Angles has them playing around with a newer sound and it’s hard not to think of The Cars late-70′s new-wave influence on songs like ‘Two Kinds of Happiness’ and ‘Taken For A Fool’. Both tracks take Ocasek and co’s, formula of power-pop but what’s missing is the toughness that was so celebrated and moment-defining in their previous three albums. With Angles, that’s something hard to ignore. [B]