The New Abnormal, the Strokes’ sixth album and first in seven years, mostly just feels like a hangover. It’s sluggish and slight, and the strongest hooks are so familiar that they require additional writing credits for the ’80s hits they copy note-for-note (Billy Idol’s “Dancing With Myself” in “Bad Decisions,” Psychedelic Furs’ “The Ghost in You” in “Eternal Summer”). Of course, the Strokes have never been subtle with their references—that’s part of the fun—but they’ve become increasingly uninterested in the tight, classic songcraft that once felt entirely their own. With producer Rick Rubin, a presence so hands-off as to feel merely symbolic, their signature sound is rendered as background music, a set of bleary-eyed mood pieces, all hovering around the five-minute mark before fizzling out with a shrug.
A generous read is that it’s a style they have never attempted before: pushing their songs to their limits, maintaining a state of Zen in their machinelike interplay. In the nearly 20 years since Is This It, the Strokes have never quite found a way to successfully expand on their blueprint. There are the loungey, drum-less ballads you can expect to find about halfway through all their tracklists (“Ask Me Anything,” “Call Me Back,” this album’s first single “At the Door”). And then there are the proggy, metallic experiments that Casablancas now seems content to channel through Voidz, a project he has plainly admitted is where his passion lies. Historically, neither mode has led to anyone’s favorite Strokes songs. And so the best moments on The New Abnormal, like the genuinely pretty “Ode to the Mets,” feel like a step in the right direction. When everything locks into place, it’s like watching an old pinball machine light up, one level at a time.
