Review: Julian Casablancas – Phrazes For The Young
What does Julian Casablancas mean when he sings stuff like “I live on the frozen surface of a fireball”? I can’t tell you with words, but I understand him just the same. The Strokes started releasing records in 2001, when I was a senior in high school; Is This It was my de facto car jam on the way to early morning AP English. On some level, I liked the Strokes because nobody else around me did- blasting “Barely Legal” was a great “fuck you” to the Nickelback and Eminem fans, because their favorite bands actually tried. Which brings me to the better, more important reason that I loved the Strokes – they were five cool guys that played melodic punk rock that didn’t sound like the aggro bullshit my friends listened to; everybody I knew thought they were pussies, but I knew they were tough, and they made me feel tough, too.
All of this is a roundabout way of saying that the Strokes are my friends. Not in the “real life” sense that we get together for cocktails (I don’t think the dudes even get together with each other for cocktails anymore), but in the sense that everything they’ve released has mirrored a specific phase of my life, and I always know exactly what they’re talking about even when it’s total bullshit. And Julian Casablancas’s solo debut, Phrazes For The Young, has a fair mount of nonsense on it, and it’s often misguided, and sometimes it sounds like he couldn’t make choices and just threw everything he had into the mix, but this guy is my bro, if you can understand that, and this has become my favorite record of the year.
When Phrazes kicks off with “Out Of The Blue,” one thing is immediately clear: this isn’t a new Strokes record. While his main band’s sound is basic rock ‘n’ roll with 21st century attitude, this is pretty much ’80s revival with no attitude. The lyrical growth evident on the last Strokes record (First Impressions Of Earth, the most underrated album of all time) continues here – Casablancas’s default mode is a warm embrace instead of a middle finger, and he sounds worried more often than carefree. But the soundscapes behind him are analog new wave, with country waltzes and slow burn torch songs accentuating how fast and cool the ostensible singles sound. “11th Dimension” is the most propulsive and radio-ready thing here, and home to that awesome line about living on a fireball. “Left & Right In The Dark” is even better, though, with a heavily echoed one-note riff that weirdly recalls Flock Of Seagulls but sounds heavenly alongside some sweet, lovingly arranged synths. “Ludlow St.,” the disc’s most critically maligned track, sounds like a mutant strain of Gram Parson’s fabled cosmic Americana; “Glass” is a heartbreaking electro ballad, and the most successful track of the set once you wrap your head around the idea of a heartbreaking electro ballad sung by that dude from the Strokes. If this sounds messy and unfocused, it is – but that shouldn’t deter you from giving it a couple dozen spins.
Phrazes For The Young is a textbook grower; the structure is only evident once you totally immerse yourself in it and parse all the crazy shit going on. And people might hate that, because it doesn’t sound effortless and it requires a fair amount of effort to enjoy, and it’s my personal pet theory that the Strokes aren’t recognized as the greatest band of my generation simply because their fans were too lazy to properly engage once the group got serious. I don’t expect this record to be anybody else’s favorite, and I wasn’t surprised by the mostly middling reviews. But I’m telling you now, this is great rock ‘n’ roll. Julian Casablancas is not trying to be cool, he’s trying to honestly communicate, and you shouldn’t hold that against him.
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Oswald Hobbes is an amateur music appreciationist from the wilds of the Midwest.
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I wanted to like it. I really did. It just didn’t work for me; I feel like the quality control was lacking. I know that Julian has a a really strong solo album in him; this, to mis-paraphrase the Strokes, just isn’t it. Good review, tho.
And for the record, I love the Strokes and their music (haters be damned). Room on Fire is one of the most melodic LP’s, well, like ever…
That’s totally fair. I can see where the detractors are coming from. Something about the record just really works for me.