The Strokes: Is It All Over?

Is there life after for The Strokes? Is 'Trigger' about fit only for an episode of 'Only Fools And Horses'? Oliver Burgess offers a personal view.



There once was a band called The Strokes. They came to Earth to save mankind from Travis. Like many superheroes they had their flaws: they flew to Earth on silver spoons, they were rich kids who had it easy, socialites with business mogul dads who owned modelling agencies. Musically and stylistically they pillaged the past to make themselves look effortlessly cool and had a 'guru' (JP Bowersock) who probably wrote a lot of the tunes (the ones that weren't written by Tom Petty that is). But we forgave them because that's what they did have in abundance, tunes.

To these ears 'Is This It?' is an excellent album, well crafted and full of brilliant alternative pop songs performed with a calm swagger, which is exactly what planet bland needed in 2001. As is well documented, the band and album were a much-needed antidote to the likes of the far too nice Travis and the moronic shit-storm that was Limp Bizkit.

Skip forward 12 years (yes, 12 years!) and we have 'exciting' new single 'One Way Trigger' - a truly awful, turgid, piece of lazy, 8-bit, Ah-Ha plagiarizing guff. Some may say that The Strokes have reinvented themselves since their debut, that we shouldn't expect 'Is This It? Mark II' (no, we shouldn't, that was the 2nd album and it was boring). They have not reinvented themselves; they've just got shit, very shit.





'One Way Trigger' is the same song The Strokes have been pedalling for 12 years, but this time it's performed by a dying old lady over the sound of a Nintendo plat-former from 1988. Before you know it Casablancas gets bored of the dying old woman routine and opts instead to do impression of a near comatose Sylvester Stallone. Then we get the guitar solo. Yes, the guitar solo (you know the one), the one that we get in every song by The Strokes, it's just that it's got wankier over the years. Once that's over and done with, we're on the home straight, which is more of a procession of painful lurches than a sprint to victory. This consists of some more mumbling alternating with the dying woman bit, which goes on far, far too long.

I think Julian talks about finding a job and settling down which is probably what he should do, but I suspect these are hollow words. The song ends in familiar fashion with the drum part from 'Hard To Explain' or one of the other good ones; unsurprisingly this is a track highlight.

And that's about it. The track is a painful mess. Rather than cover up the complete lack of a song with anything approaching a creative idea The Strokes opt instead for a pitch shifter (or kick in the balls?) and a secondhand retro console. The face isn't a mess, Julian still has those eyes the girls swoon over, so will look good on every magazine cover from Rolling Stone to NME. Just a shame that that the music being produced is so appalling bad.


Do you agree or disagree with Oliver's view? Leave your comments below.