September 2026 AOTM: The New Abnormal by The Strokes

Album of the Month: The New Abnormal - The Strokes

Indie Rock icons The Strokes have had a highly variable discography, even for a fan like myself. Their first two records are all but universally loved, but it's something of a crap-shoot on their following LPs. With the success of 2020's The New Abnormal and the disappointment of their latest record Reality Awaits it reaffirms a primary cause identified for the band's fluctuation: band culture and interpersonal relationships.

There's a great series of mini-podcast episodes that the members of The Strokes released at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in April 2020-- in place of their cancelled tour in support of The New Abnormal. In a few of these episodes the band talked about their experience recording the album with (at the time) new producer Rick Rubin. Through these glimpses, it's clear that the kineticism and unity found in The New Abnormal comes directly from the unity of the band members during that recording process. Reality Awaits (released last July) has had me thinking about this. When there is tension between Julian Casablancas (vocals) and the rest of the band, that tension becomes intolerably obvious in the music.

Listen to "Ode to the Mets" and look-out for the moment when Fabrizio Moretti's drums kick in. According to those podcasts, this moment when Julian speaks on mic to Fab was captured during one of the many impromptu jams that Rubin had them play together. Recording in this looser, rawer fashion breathes life into the album, elevating each track to sound like it comes from a much younger group. The unfettered realness on display is a huge part of what makes the album so fresh.

This is what sells The New Abnormal for me. It's not just a great selection of songs with a variety of pop hooks, biting and raw vocals, and spacey electronics. The album feels like a reunion, like a group of friends getting over their grievances and petty disagreements to recognize their care for one another. Rubin took a once-great band who seemed incapable of getting out of their own way, and gave them the kick in the pants that they needed. "The Adults are Talking" and "Why Are Sundays So Depressing" demonstrate this, where each member feels featured and important, where the composite parts of the band's sound work in tandem. Take the main riff of "The Adults are Talking", it's as much defined by its bass as the guitar. And at no point does it feel like the song is only continuing for Julian's vocals to wrap-up. It's a brilliantly composed track that shows the group firing on all cylinders.

The New Abnormal is also wonderfully experimental for the band in a few parts. Plenty of tracks like "Brooklyn Bridge to Chorus" and "Bad Decisions" play on the familiar dance-y post-punk-revival that the band have practiced since 2011's Angles. But then there's "At the Door", a song which revels in electronic melancholia and melodramatic pop hooks. The Synth-pop trap has claimed alternative rock acts before, an event-horizon which Muse, Coldplay, and others have fallen victim to. But here? The Strokes succeed at it because it never sounds insincere, it never sounds like their pandering or over-stretching.

Of all the tracks on this record, the closer "Ode to the Mets" has to be the most well rounded. It mixes simple, nostalgia-inducing guitar and synth melodies with Julian's most off-the-cuff performance on the record, slowly building and becoming intimate in a way the rest of the album toys with but rarely completely captures.

This review is pretty big picture, but the big picture really is what I think allowed The Strokes to get themselves together and pull through here. The album is so rooted in feelings of nostalgia and melancholy, and it manages to both mourn the past and celebrate the bright future-- a bright future The Strokes may have had, if not for the pandemic which seemed to kill their new found momentum, contentment, and excitement.

-Paul Taylor

(Web Content Director at WXOU)