Simple punk-rock album succeeds for Strokes
By LIAM FARRELL
Scene Music Critic
Every once in awhile, a band comes along that defies the conventional music scene and comes out with something completely different. The Velvet Underground, the Ramones, Television, the Replacements. Bands that have a minimalist attitude about rock, where production and effects take a background to their roots.
Add The Strokes to this list.
With an album and sound more suited to an evening at CBGB's than a video on MTV, The Strokes lay it all out on Is This It, a rough, complicated album filled with the punk and rock influences of the underground.
Filled with jangling guitars, heavy backbeats and distorted vocals, Is This It could have been recorded in a garage and sold at a punk show for five dollars. It is a testament to the band that being released by a recording industry conglomerate did not kill the non-conformist spirit inside of them. The entire album clocks in at just over a half hour.
The album's lyrical content is similar to what their influences dealt with. Bad relationships, break-ups, seduction and conflict with society all play recurring roles.
The album opens with the title track "Is This It," a layered groove with simple guitar licks and vocals reminiscient of Lou Reed. A song about misunderstanding each other, the speaker argues that "we're not in a maze/ we just disagree."
"The Modern Age" and "Barely Legal" find the speaker occupying the unlikely role of a seductor, with the latter track proclaiming that he'll "only steal your innocence."
Songs such as "Someday," "Alone, Together," and "Trying Your Luck" occupy more typical relationship stances for a punk band, as each song considers romantic failure among a landscape of pulsating guitars and heavy drums.
"Alone, Together" is the strongest of these tracks, with a very dark melody and angry vocals.
Non-conformity is the subject of "Soma," "Hard To Explain," and "Take It or Leave It." Although the lyrics are almost unintelligble in "Soma," it's obvious the speaker is ranting about people who are "trying so hard to be like them," a reference to society in general.
The last song on the album, "Take It or Leave It," is a great summation of the whole punk attitude. The speaker says "leave me alone/ I'm in control," and as for the band's music, it doesn't matter to them if you don't like it. It is a good song about indifference toward the opinions of thsoe who don't matter.
The strongest track on the album is the band's first single, "Last Nite." Featuring a great buildup of instruments and vocals that sound like Jim Morrison, it's a great rock song about the morning after a breakup, with lyrics underlining the speaker's mass confusion over his situation. In the end though, he proclaims that "I don't care no more/ I'm walking out that door."
The Strokes make their point and then leave. Is This It is a short album with great music and great attitude. It is refreshing to hear a band in touch with musical roots that have long been abandoned for a highly produced sound and more pretentious lyrics.
A lot of times in music, the simplest of approaches is the best. The Strokes prove that.
All Scene Stories for Tuesday, November 20, 2001
