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The student news site of Wheat Ridge High School

The Haystack

The student news site of Wheat Ridge High School

The Haystack

Evolving Into Noise: Tyranny Review

Photo+by+stereogum.com
Photo by stereogum.com

By Daniela Santos

Being the pioneers for the garage rock scene in the early 2000s, The Strokes received high critical acclaim.

Their first album, Is This It, received a 10 out of 10 score on NME, a 9.1 out of 10 score on Pitchfork, and 4 out of 5 stars on Rolling Stone. The music magazine even proudly stated in the first sentence of the album’s review, “This is the stuff of which legends are made,” thus creating hype that would then overshadow the band’s career in the years ahead.

The band’s second album, Room on Fire, received similar positive reviews, but that is due to how similar sounding it was to its predecessor. It was not until 2006 when the band took a change of pace which unintentionally ended up being for the worst. Their third album First Impressions of Earth was darker and lost its melodic sensibility that gravitated audiences in the previous albums.

The third album later followed a five year hiatus in which front man Julian Casablancas and other members of the band tried some projects on their own. Casablancas had the most commercial attention and his first solo album Phrazes For the Young still shared some of the aggression of The Strokes’ third album while also abandoning some of the band’s rock elements and going for a more psychedelic sound. Tyranny, the latest work of Casablancas along with a new band who together are Julian Casablancas + the Voidz, continue this aggressive development.

If you’re a fan of the early work of The Strokes like me, then the newest solo project of this Strokes front man won’t be an easy listen.

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There is a time and a place for punk music, and unfortunately the familiarity that comes with The Strokes will not make it effortless for a listener to accept such a harsh sound. Casablancas received his rock royalty title by creating these simple melodic pieces of art in the albums Is This It and Room on Fire. If he had started off his career with Tyranny then history would have taken a different course.

The first single “Human Sadness” was a refreshingly new sound coming from Casablancas, and it made me excited for what else he had to offer. Last year after hearing his collaboration with electronic powerhouse, Daft Punk, the change of sound was impressive. Furthermore, I was in awe of the rare emotion that was displayed through his vocals which is something that has not really been a part of a Strokes project. I wanted more, and my wish came true with this 11-minute serenade that, although anthem-esque, could have easily been reduced to half its time.  Clearly a highlight for the album, no other song on this album matches this single.

Most often the album offers punk sounds that also have a low-fi production quality which is most thoroughly displayed on “Where No Eagles Fly.” With a catchy bass that reminds me of the intro for First Impressions of Earth’s “Juicebox” the song offers a catchy chorus along with techno keyboards and a high dose of Casablancas’ screams. The loud vocals may seem appropriate for some songs on the album, but others such as “Business Dog” despite being two and a half minutes, quickly sounds redundant but is luckily followed by the slower paced “Xerox” that includes fuzzy monotone vocals. 

It’s clear that Casablancas has creativity to spare. “Father Electricity” gradually builds to be an infectious tropical beat that also has a layer of synthesizer and more fuzziness. It’s oddly a highlight of the album since it is still able to make these sounds work and appropriately end with what sounds like bongo drums, but it is definitely weird for Casablancas.

Experimentation with sound is what can make or break this album. Songs that attempt to be of a calmer pace are butchered with unnecessary drum beats or, like in “Nintendo Blood,” over use of the guitar throughout the song instead of giving the instrument a proper solo. This song randomly concludes with Casablancas’ vocals to be suddenly auto tuned to sound robotic and then transitioned back into his yells.

“This is the final destination,” says Casablancas on Rolling Stone, “this record is what I’ve been wanting to make since the first [solo] record,” and hopefully this sound is out of his system for good. Overall this album requires patience and it depends on how big of a Strokes fan you are to be able to endure this new direction for Casablancas. Most songs blend together and may be hard to decipher one from the other but there are hidden gems.

Without the amount of publicity The Strokes received in the early 2000s, the world may not have been able to enjoy the great music that the band has to offer. But this hype may have also cursed the band members to be doomed to extreme criticism when trying to branch out into new sounds. Casablancas took a new direction for his solo work, but it does not mean that his work in his original band has come to an end. After the band’s hiatus and Casablancas’ touring for his first solo venture, two other albums were released and were received to a decent amount of positivity. To achieve maximum satisfaction for Tyranny one must keep an open mind and take away the need to compare; just try to forget about Julian Casablancas’ legacy in The Strokes.

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