Albums: The Strokes - Reality Awaits

The Strokes - Reality Awaits

Psycho Shit; Dine N’Dash; Lonely In The Future; Falling Out Of Love; Going To Babble On; Going Shopping; Liar’s Remorse; The Fruits Of Conquest; Tyrants Of The Mellow Moon

(RCA)

For a band that practically wrote the blueprint for 21st-century indie rock, The Strokes has always seemed oddly uncomfortable with nostalgia. Reality Awaits, the long-awaited seventh album, doesn't try to recreate the leather-jacket cool of Is This It or simply extend the sleek melancholy of The New Abnormal. Instead, it dismantles the band's familiar sound and rebuilds it into something stranger, looser, and unexpectedly moving.

Musically, the band has never sounded more adventurous. Lead single Going Shopping disguises a razor-sharp critique of consumer culture beneath an irresistibly bouncy groove, while Lonely in the Future and The Fruits of Conquest balance existential dread with the effortless melodic instincts that made The Strokes famous. Elsewhere, Psycho Shit veers into gloriously unhinged territory, flirting with glam, synth-pop, and art rock without ever losing the band's unmistakable chemistry.

Rick Rubin's production leaves plenty of breathing room. Nick Valensi and Albert Hammond Jr. still weave their trademark interlocking guitars together, but they're no longer the sole focus. Synths shimmer where riffs once dominated, and Fabrizio Moretti's drumming provides subtle propulsion rather than explosive release. The result is an album that feels spacious and unpredictable.

Not every experiment lands. The closing Tyrants of the Mellow Moon" drifts more than it develops, and there are moments when singer Julian Casablancas' fascination with vocal processing threatens to overwhelm the songwriting. But those missteps are the price of ambition, and Reality Awaits is nothing if not ambitious.

More importantly, the album proves The Strokes are still willing to risk confusing their audience in pursuit of something new. Two decades after helping define indie rock, they're no longer interested in preserving a legacy—they're trying to escape it.

The new album is the Strokes' boldest statement since Is This It—less concerned with recapturing youth than confronting middle age in an increasingly surreal world. It may divide longtime fans, but its willingness to evolve makes it one of the band's most compelling albums to date.