The Strokes fourth album "ANGLES" in stores now!

As is the pattern, Angles, the Strokes' fourth album, is the farthest departure from their debut lp, "This Is It," which riveted the hearts and ears of millions when it was released in 2001. Most of us consider "Is This It" their 'defining' album and "Room on Fire," First Impressions of Earth," and "Angles" as follow-ups to their initial masterpiece. We fans hang on like a devoted spouse, looking back at the honeymoon with reverie and longing because we're not sure who it is we are with anymore.

On the other hand, isn't it unfair of us to call "Is This It" their defining album when the Strokes have clearly been trying to slip out from under this style brand like an ox trying to slip out of its burdensome yoke? Furthermore, a band can hardly define itself with one album. The Formula** is to produce four albums minimum that sound more-or-less the same in order to firmly define a 'signature sound' [the public are slow learners] and in the interim, conquer the entire world from Katmandu to Kuala Lumpur where I am sure there is a guy right now wearing an AC/DC t-shirt.

Like confused tourists, The Strokes drive right by the Taj Majal and stop at a greasy spoon three buildings past, not realizing the greatness that had been right there before them. But if you were on court-ordered house arrest in the Taj, even that would feel like a prison. In other words, perspective is reality. And that's all each of us has to go by.

" Under Cover of Darkness " is the best song on the album in my opinion but I can't shake the image of Julian thinking placatingly, "Let's just put this track on Angles to make all those "Is This It" junkies happy." What is it about the fan base that makes us want to hear just more of the same? Do we have one track minds because we are mindlessly myopic or because we appreciate the subtle nuances of a focused study? Can you imagine Monet if , after the first couple waterlily paintings, he said to himself," Bah humbug with the waterlilies," and henceforth decided to paint a different piece of furniture with each subsequent painting until the end of his time? My feeling is that although this may have fulfilled some unnamed artistic personal mission, it would have surely plunged him into obscurity. Part of the beauty of his body of work is in the disciplined study of recapturing the same thing; the commitment and dedication to the capture itself. It's like when I saw the Who in Maui in 2004 and they were playing "My Generation" and the other same songs that they've been playing for 40 years. I thought to myself, "They must be so doggone sick of playing these songs. How do they do it?" But there was obviously such love in the work, meaning, the love for the fans and all the rewards that go with it. We all went absolutely wild. It was such sweet satisfaction. "Give the people what they want!" as Red Skelton, The Kinks and even Jimmy Cliff have famously said. But not everyone wants to play the Super Bowl......or do they?

The first track on Angles is Machu Picchu and might be described as a song with an 80's feel accompanied by flourishes. Track 3, Two Kinds of Happiness, starts out sounding a bit like a Cure era song but quickly launches into a Tom Petty sort of groove and then switches rapidly again into yet more metamorphosis. I even caught a few nuances of The Cars in both the chords and crooning in this song. The song could aptly be described as a very interesting journey. Your'e So Right and Taken for a Fool , tracks 4 and 5, follow the same line of experimentation and display Julian's breadth as a vocalist with Taken for a Fool being the better of the two. This good song somehow retains a nice consistency within the varied melody and styles. I loved their performance of this on David Letterman March 30. You can check it out on new.thestrokes.com. Awesome performance. Games, track 6, is an emo song hybrid, wrought with drum machine and synthetic sounds reminiscent of the 80's when artificial music was the thing. Call Me Back, track 7, has a Church/Bauhaus forlorn quality to the intro which is really interesting and surprising but then it switches abruptly and goes in another direction entirely, becoming much more complex. I really like Albert's art piece on the new.thestrokes.com website which accompanies this song. Very beautiful film short for this track. Gratisfaction, which has a Queen influence, feels like something Paul McCartney might have done post Beatles after finishing the 12 studio albums he did with the boys in eight years. Like a goat finally let out of its pen, there's something very Wings about this self-affirming celebratory jam. If Julian and the rest of the band are trying to prove their versatility as musicians, well then they've done that. And I can't help but compare the songs on Angles to other bands because if they're searching for an identity for themselves, then I am too. Especially if they haven't fully established, accepted or recognized their own. I have never felt compelled to do this with any of their other albums.

Metabolism is the least listenable song on the album. Can you even imagine this song ever being played on the radio? But clearly, that is not the end goal for The Strokes. I guess not everyone who can have it necessarily wants wax figures of themselves in Madame Tussaud's Gallery. I personally think it would be kind of cool.

"Life is Simple in the Moonlight" sounds just like themselves doing a bossa nova song. Different and definitely unusual.

DO go buy this album. It's worth it although don't expect to find a brick shaped confectionary in this Pez dispenser. If you're like me, you don't mind if the outside changes color and themes (it's fun to collect them all! ) , but you want the inside to look and taste pretty much the same. There's comfort in familiarity. You may ask the valid question, "How can there be familiarity in "Is This It" and "Room on Fire" -- that's only two albums in their colossal 'four album repertoire.' " The answer is that you play the songs over and over again hundreds of times, something I have done with their first two albums.

In other words, will Garfield eat something different you hand him after you've already introduced him to lasagna? Maybe. Maybe not.

I believe that this band's fan base has never even come close to reaching the full potentiality that it really deserves nor has it musically ever reached the heights of Music World acclaim that it has the ability and talent to pull off. Whose fault?To quote Gregory MaGuire from his best-selling novel 'Wicked,' " Perhaps every accidental cluster of people has a short period of grace, in between the initial shyness and prejudice on the one hand and eventual repugnance and betrayal on the other." Historically, that time frame for rock bands has been eight years on average. After that, you can fire Colonel Tom Parker and get as 'out there' artistically as you want. But let's face it, you can't fire The Colonel if you never even knew him. [end]

**see Elvis, Green Day, REM, the Cure, The Who, Van Halen, and countless other wildly successful and legendary bands....yes,even the Beatles whose first 4 albums, (1) Please Please Me, (2) With the Beatles, (3) Beatlemania! With the Beatles and (4) Introducing...The Beatles sound nearly identical in style.

Day 2 Lollapalooza 2010 "Well, ain't that just special, people." ~ Mike Ness

Saturday, my sister, who had been ill the day before, was feeling better.(right,Clara...tee hee) We got out of bed at the crack of noon, had a nice lunch and watched too much Showtime 2. Got to the venue by 6:15pm, after downing a Kuma burger and a filafel, just in time to catch most of Social Distortion's set. Mike Ness was every inch a pro. You can just tell he has 20 years of stage experience behind him as he completely owned the stage, comfortably cavorted with the audience and belted out songs in excellent form. The acoustics were flawless. When you've been doing this for as long as Ness has, there is a confident swagger to your walk onstage and he definitely had that. You can just tell when someone doesn't have anything to prove. Let's call it the " I really don't give a f*ck what you think," attitude. Social Distortion just IS and ALWAYS WILL BE cool. Period. I also appreciated his casual banter between songs. The first song we heard him perform was 'Don't Drag Me Down' from the White Heat, White Light, White Trash lp. It was so good to see him still rocking because the last time I saw Social Distortion play live was in the mid 80's as a young and enthusiastic teenager and I first became a fan in 1984. He really struck a chord with me and, I must admit, I couldn't help but scream out like a deranged fan, "Hell yeah! I remember THAT!' when he introduced his next song by saying, "I wrote this back in 1983 when being a punk rocker was truly dangerous."

If you were there in the 80's when punk was a true fringe youth movement and not just a commercialized fashion style sold at Forever 21, then you know exactly what he is talking about. It was a different world back then, of course, and punk was truly the edge. It was the real deal. Great memories, is all I can say. Then he ripped into Mommy's Little Monster. I couldn't stop dancing! This was too friggin' amazing! He introduced the next song, Sick Boys, as a great "drinking sing-along." Amen to that! It was perfect. EVERYONE was dancing and cheering. Even the 60 year old guy standing next to me who admitted he had never heard of Social D. before declared, "These guys are great!". Part of my joy may have been not being squashed like a sardine in the front row. I don't know. The overall experience, however, was just second to none. These guys, after all these years, could still bring home the goods. As I recall, SxDx (a pseudonym) were one of the forerunners of American punk and the ones who invented that now familiar punk sound of wanging out really fast power chords repetitively and changing them with a heavy slide, backed by a really solid jumpy drum beat. That's Social Distortion.

To watch these guys play on a stage with the Field Museum to their left and the Museum Campus Tower building on their right, gleaming in its steel and glass magnificence, was pretty hard to beat. It was a beautiful day and here I was watching Mike Ness do a 'Pete Townshend' jump with this guitar (sweeeeet!) and then keep on rolling with Reach for the Sky. But it was about to get better.The next number was the ultimate highlight of their set at least as far as I am concerned. Only because "Ball and Chain" rules. In my opinion, its the best song Ness has ever written. It's been covered by many bands including the Replacements. There is something about that song. Without any choice in the matter, my vocal chords sang along to the song , my fist pumped at every chorus and my feet, with a will of their own, jumped up and down. It's a beautiful heartfelt song that pretty much says it all.

Next was 'Highway 101' and then 'Sometimes I Do' with the off-the-cuff intro, "You don't have to be Irish to love this song but it sure helps." The set was finished off with Still Alive and then Ring of Fire, before which Ness tipped his hat to the African American community by saying, "Let's face it people. Without good black music, there wouldn't be good white music. And that's why this man is my hero." I assume he was talking about Johnny Cash who was of course far from black unless you are referring to his attire. Cash has been called "The Man in Black" and even "The Father of Punk." As I recall, when he passed in 2003, the entire aging punk community went into mourning, myself included. My Dad introduced me to Cash when I was in elementary school by reverberating Ring Of Fire through the house at deafening decibels. He did this with Gregorian chant, too, but that's a different story.

Cash's daughter, Rosanne Cash, has stated, "The song is about the transformative power of love." What I found out from Social Distortion's performance, however, is that I never left the Ring of Fire to begin with. For me, its about the enduring power of love. I grinned, fully satisfied at the end of the set, as the newly converted senior by my side said, "I'm going out and buying some of this music." Transformative works, too.

IT AINT OVER UNTIL THE FAT LADY...err,umm...I MEAN ARCADE FIRE SINGS> STAY TUNED FOR DAY 3Lollapalooza to be posted shortly