THIS offering suggests straight from the off who was the leading light behind The Strokes’ best work. Phrazes begins with brilliant anguish – “somewhere along the way my hopefulness turned to sadness... turned to bitterness… turned to anger” etc – but in an uplifting singalong tune quintessential to the band’s best idiosyncratic sound.
The Strokes probably hit the highs too early along the way, with that magnificent debut Is This It, but Casablancas, who wrote all of that 2001 CD, hits them again in his solo album, the latest and best of the band’s individual releases. Here we have Stroke-ish guitars, drum machines, 1980s synth riffs, and those Casablancas vocals over endearing half-hidden melodies and some slow-to-grasp-hard-to-let-go euphony, not least in the heartfelt Left & Right In The Dark.
Punky skuzzy bluesy leather-jacket pop in a mix that works – these eight songs over 40 minutes leave you awaiting the new Strokes album with renewed enthusiasm.
• Julian Casablancas plays Leeds Metropolitan University on December 10
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