The opening track from The Strokes' debut full-length, "Is this It," begins with a few seconds of weird, fast-forwarded guitar, soon decelerating into nothing.
Another Radiohead knockoff? Hardly. Those first few seconds are the least typical moment of a record full of crunchy NYC punk rock, a throwback to the days of Television and the Velvet Underground, the two bands to which The Strokes are most often compared.
One has to admire The Strokes for having the guts to choose "Is This It" as their album title. After all, the band has been a preeminent subject of music-industry buzz for the past year, selling out all the world's major clubs, appearing several times in Rolling Stone and making the cover of respected British music rag NME -- all on the strength of one three-song EP. That left skeptics wondering -- are The Strokes really "saviors" (as Rolling Stone dubbed them) of rock? Will this be an album to change the face of music? In other words, is this it?
The answer is a little more complicated than that. The album is no "Sgt. Pepper" or "OK Computer;" it doesn't seek to create a new genre for itself. Instead, it takes a form some left for dead -- brash, hard-working, ragged-edged New York punk -- and re-invents it as only a bunch of upper-class, preppy early-twentysomethings could. The Strokes have the requisite pretentiousness and rock-star sensibility. Hardly twee indie-rockers, they live loud, getting drunk at posh clubs and kissing each other onstage to assert their masculinity.
And the music reflects all that, like a middle finger in the face of the current trend in college-radio music that's best expressed by a Kings of Convenience album title: "Quiet is the New Loud."
The sound is led by the gravelly voice of the incredibly named Julian Casablancas, sounding like a young Lou Reed as he belts out lyrics like "Life seems unreal / Can we go back to your place?" The guitars of Nick Valensi and Albert Hammond Jr. recall that of Television's Tom Verlaine, sometimes erupting in squalls of feedback, always driving the songs -- even the ballads -- with an unrelenting intensity.
If the title track bristles with a guitar riff that brings to mind the Pixies' "Where is Your Mind?" and other tracks sound strangely familiar; it's not your imagination. Casablancas freely admits to "stealing" the best bits from the music he admires. But usually by the time you've nailed down the inspiration for what you've just heard, The Strokes are on to something new, something all their own.
These are songs based not just in the Velvet Underground's artiness, but also in the dirty blues that seeps through to dominate songs like "Barely Legal." Like most of the album, its subject matter is all rock 'n' roll; these are songs about girls, the trouble they cause and the trouble the narrator wants to get them into. "I want to steal your innocence," Casablancas sneers in "Barely Legal."
Other songs embrace a poppier sound, like "Someday," which opens with an infectious guitar hook and a clean, precise beat courtesy of drummer Fabrizio Moretti before Casablancas comes in sneering and growling, just to make sure you know this is, after all, a rock song.
One interesting side note to "Is This It" is the exclusion on the U.S. release of a track that showed up on last month's British version. Titled "New York City Cops," the song's chorus repeats the phrase "New York City cops / They ain't too smart." Out of respect for the NYPD's sacrifices in the Sept. 11 attacks, the band chose to replace the track with a different one, "When It Started," presumably at a substantial cost, since the album had been scheduled for a Sept. 25 U.S. release. Fortunately, "When It Started" is a fine replacement, showcasing Nikolai Fraiture's inventive bass while Casablancas tells another story of the city.
At the risk of answering a rhetorical question, this IS it. This is an album to win back lapsed punk fans and win new ones. Indie fans will think they're daring for buying it, and casual music fans who listen to Limp Bizkit will think they're sophisticated.
But The Strokes hardly seem like ones to let hype -- or success -- go their heads. Rather than rest on their laurels or fade into quick obscurity like other "next big things," let's hope they go on making more exciting, boat-rocking music like this.
