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The Strokes have never been a band that plays it safe when everyone expects them to, and “Reality Awaits” proves that once again. Their seventh album, produced by Rick Rubin and recorded partly on a mountain in Costa Rica, sounds like a group that spent six years chasing a feeling instead of a formula. It doesn’t sound like “Is This It”. It barely sounds like “The New Abnormal”. What it sounds like is five guys in their forties refusing to coast.
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The Sound: Distorted, Restless, Unfamiliar
The record opens with “Psycho Shit,” a jittery, half unhinged track that throws you off balance right away. From there it moves through nine songs that rarely sit still. Julian Casablancas leans harder into Auto Tune and vocoder textures than he ever has with this band, closer to his work in The Voidz than anything from the Strokes back catalog. It’s the most divisive choice on the album, and honestly it should be. Some tracks use the processed vocals to create distance and unease, almost like the lyrics are being filtered through static from a future none of us asked for. Other moments feel like the effect is covering for a melody that needed less help, not more.
Lyrics That Look Outward
“Going Shopping,” the lead single, sets the tone lyrically. It’s a sharp little jab at consumerism and environmental rot, dressed up in a groove that’s catchy enough you almost miss how bleak the words are.
“Falling Out of Love” slows everything down, a six minute ballad that feels genuinely weary rather than performed. It’s one of the record’s clearest emotional moments, no gimmicks, just a band letting a breakup song breathe.
The Experiments That Pay Off
Elsewhere the experimentation gets stranger. “Liar’s Remorse” distorts the guitars until they sound almost like horns. “Going to Babble On” pulls from eighties rock guitar tones and political frustration in equal measure, a leftover from a 2021 benefit show that finally found its home here. “Dine N’Dash” has a loose, nightlife pulse to it, something you could imagine soundtracking a party that’s about to go wrong. And “Tyrants of the Mellow Moon” closes things out with a strange, almost proggy sprawl that owes more to Radiohead than to anything the Strokes have done before.
A Little Humor Inside the Anxiety
What holds the album together, when it does hold together, is a sense of humor buried inside the anxiety. “Lonely in the Future” pokes fun at being ahead of a trend nobody wanted to follow, name dropping other musicians and taking a swing at a well known music critic along the way. It’s a rare light moment on a record that otherwise spends a lot of time worrying about power, greed, and where the country is headed.
Where It Stumbles
The problem, if there is one, is consistency. At nine tracks and around forty two minutes, “Reality Awaits” sometimes feels stretched thin despite its short runtime. A few songs lean on studio trickery instead of songwriting, and the vocal processing that makes certain tracks feel alive makes others feel muffled. This isn’t a band eager for radio play. It’s a band chasing a mood, and moods are inconsistent by nature.
Final Thoughts
Still, there’s something admirable about a group this far into their career refusing to repeat themselves. “Reality Awaits” isn’t trying to recreate 2001. It’s not trying to recreate 2020 either. It’s messy, occasionally frustrating, and more interesting than almost anything else released by a band their age this year. Albert Hammond Jr. has called it his favorite Strokes record, and while that might be overstating it, you can hear why he’d say it. There’s real risk here, and real reward tucked inside the risk.
This isn’t the Strokes album longtime fans were expecting. It might be the one they needed to make.
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My first ever record was by The Beatles, picked up secondhand from a charity shop near my house. I was twelve when I found it, and I still have it sitting on my shelf today. That one purchase is the reason I fell in love with music in the first place.
When I'm not writing, you'll usually find me out playing disc golf. And if there's a dance floor nearby, I'm the one who can't resist whipping out an air guitar solo. I like to think that makes me a bit different from the rest.
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