The Strokes – 2026
★☆☆☆☆
In the interrogation room, you sit across the table from Julian Casablancas. You ask him for the album. For thirty seconds straight, he says nothing. Suddenly, he vomits all over the table. The vomit starts to move, and takes a new form as a vinyl record. The cover reads ‘Reality Awaits.’
‘What on earth is this?’ you ask him.
‘It’s the album.’
This album is terrible. I could’ve told you that for free upon the release of Going Shopping. It’s incredibly unfortunate that after the 25 year run of both The Strokes and The Voidz, we’re left with two complete shitters polluting both discographies. Obviously, the biggest issue with Reality Awaits (and what I’ll be harping on the most), is the autotune that Julian, for some reason, has become so incredibly infatuated with. He used to be tasteful about it, songs like Human Sadness and Instant Crush come to mind. However, as the years have gone on, Julian seems to want more and more, with less regard for how it sounds. Of course, there’s also the insistence on AI visuals, both in album covers and adverts. It doesn’t really affect the music itself, but it’s tacky.
The closest comparison I can find with this album is the Emily Montes self-titled. Even then, Emily Montes seems to put far more passion into her work than The Strokes care to. When listening to Going Shopping for the first time, it occurred to me that even without the horrific autotune, the writing on the song is so flaccid that the autotune circles back around to become the only interesting thing on the album. The instrumentals range from boring to piss-poor, being particularly bad on Lonely in the Future where the autotune vocals trade blows with the piano keys, as if they’re desperately trying to shout over each other. While I think that a lot of this album is immediately improved without the autotune, it would still be a lacking project and hold a comfortable spot at the bottom of The Strokes’ discography.
I have to wonder, are the other members of both bands complacent with this disaster, or just being held hostage by Julian’s brain-damaged ideas of what sounds good? Do they just not care? It hurts my heart to know that such a low could be hit following The New Abnormal, which felt like such a perfect band for a band whose star was clearly waning. I mean, what better note to end on then Ode to the Mets? Even the synths that appear speckled across this album feel hollow, like far cries of what used to be only six years ago. Just stop.
Favorite Track(s): Going To Babble On
Written by Michéal Doran
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