The release of The Strokes’ debut album Is This It? in 2001 was surrounded by a massive hype (the NME hailed them as the saviours of Rock ‘n’ Roll months before the album came out) and the beginning of the “The” band name trend. The record was celebrated by fans and critics alike, who highlighted the band’s lo-fi approach that sounded so effortlessly cool. The Strokes were the new ‘in’ band and together with Detroit-based The White Stripes and The Hives from Sweden they paved the way for a new generation of indie/alternative/garage rock that had the potential to be more than just underground favorites.

Room on Fire, the follow-up album in 2003, was controversial. The record contained obvious hits (’12:51′ and ‘Reptilia’), but the fact that those songs stood out so much meant that a lot of the predecessor’s consistency had been lost. The New York band had also expanded their influences and experimented with new sounds, polarizing the fan base. The record remains equally loved and hated to this very day. From a more cautious perspective it can at least be claimed that Room on Fire suffered from the immense expectations it inevitably stirred following their über-album debut.

First Impressions of Earth is The Strokes’ third opus and is released 30 December 2005. The album’s title implies a new outlook, and in the band’s case, a new beginning. First Impressions of Earth sees The Strokes departing from their customary sound, adding more aggression, pathos and depth to their formerly near monotonous music. Where their production and mixing used to be (or at least used to sound) minimalistic and reduced, you can now hear money and effort put into the work. The Strokes have departed from the safe zone and are out to discover new ground.

The band’s expanded horizon is underlined by new musical influences, now far more contemporary: musically, The Strokes seem to have picked up more than a few tricks from british bands Muse (most obvious on ‘Electricityscape‘ and ‘Ize of the World‘) and Franz Ferdinand (the current single ‘Juicebox‘). Incidentally, Franz Ferdinand and The Strokes are fans of each other’s music and have been toying with the idea of a collaborative effort (whether live or recorded is unkown). And quite ironically, Muse had announced in the early stages of recording their new album (scheduled for spring 2006) that some of their songs would be reminiscent of The Strokes.

Julian Casablanca’s voice is forced to cover a much wider range, and the lead singer holds up to the task. More than that, even, his voice has never sounded so pronounced and strong on any other Strokes recording. And more than once you’ll hear a bit of Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain (on ‘Vision of Division‘), U2’s Bono (on ‘Fear of Sleep‘) and The Vines’ Craig Nicholls (on ‘Juicebox‘) in his singing. If you’re starting to get the feeling that First Impressions of Earth seems to lack in originality you’ve got a point. The Strokes are only innovative so far that they’ve reinvented their own sound.

And yet the outcome of their sound blending is astounding, because they pull it off so well. Each track is uniquely interesting. The opener ‘You Only Live Once‘ is a mixture of their previous and their new direction, perfectly linking the new album back to the first two. The first single ‘Juicebox‘ is their most aggressive tune to date and was accompanied by such a cynical and ironic (read: great!) video, that most of its imagery had to be edited out in order for the video to receive any airplay at all (the director, Mike Palmieri, removed his name from the video following the forced cuts).

Further exciting highlights include the energetic ‘Heart in a Cage’, scheduled as the next single release sometime in February, the virtuous and versatile ‘Electricityscape‘ and the elegic ‘Ize of the World‘ with its Muse-y crescendo. Also of note are ‘Ask me anything‘, a wonderfully self-reflective song in which Casablances is accompanied by no more than an electric cello, and ‘Razorblade‘, which is set to the melody of Barry Manilow’s ‘Mandy‘ over which Casablances declares: “My feelings are more important than yours”. Which basically means that he couldn’t care less how we felt about the new record.

Alas, the album’s diversity hurts its overall coherence at times. The album doesn’t flow as well as Is This It? and is more a bundle of individual songs than an entity itself. Furthermore, not only has their average song length expanded to over four minutes (they used to keep it short and simple), but First Impressions of Earth is compiled of no less than fourteen tracks. The high quality the album opens with is lost towards the stretched end, which causes the record to drag to the finish line. These are minor gripes however, that only slightly tarnish the overall strength of First Impressions of Earth.

In the end, the greatest strength of First Impressions of Earth is that it proves that The Strokes are evolving as a band and that they are capable of creating exciting and masterfully produced tunes that still feature their trademark cool sound. The record is not the milestone their debut was, lacks a bit in originality, coherence and proficiency, but the individual tracks’ quality should be good enough to restore faith into the fans who were disillusioned by Room on Fire and remind everyone who ‘the original “The” band’ is.

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