The Strokes: Room On Fire

THE STROKES: ROOM ON FIRE (2003)

1) What Ever Happened?; 2) Reptilia; 3) Automatic Stop; 4) 12:51; 5) You Talk Way Too Much; 6) Between Love & Hate; 7) Meet Me In The Bathroom; 8) Under Control; 9) The Way It Is; 10) The End Has No End; 11) I Canʼt Win.

General verdict: Same as before, but slightly less intense, slightly more philosophical, and much more indicative of this bandʼs limitations.

This is one more of those albums which, though not altogether boring or repulsive by any means, is tough as nails to write about if you want your writing to make any sense or have any usefulness at all. In a way, it is quite telling that the first lines to be sung by Julian on the first track on the album go "I wanna be forgotten and I donʼt wanna be remembered"... oops, "reminded" actually, but from the very first listen I got this ingrained as "remembered" and thatʼs the way it is going to stay for me, because this is what Room On Fire is: a decent record that sounds so goddamn much like a pale carbon copy of Is This It, it is almost like a textbook-oriented definition of «sophomore slump».

Scuttlebutt says the band conducted its original recording sessions with none other than Nigel Godrich, the wizard behind classic Radiohead magic — but, apparently, he was not able to hit it off with Casablancas, and in the end the band returned to their original producer. I do not know whether we should be happy or sad about this, because if Godrich was indeed trying to give the Strokes a «Radiohead touch», the results might have turned out seriously grotesque — then again, they might have ended up far more interesting than the expectedly bare-bones and, by now, fairly predictable dry-cleaners production style of Gordon Raphael; the most surprise you are going to get out of this is the occasional synthesizer-like effect on the lead guitar, e.g. ʽ12:51ʼ which is made to sound like a stereotypical Cars track, albeit even more sanitized.

Other than that, Room On Fire simply repeats the original formula of alternating between loud, but not aggressive mid-tempo to slow-tempo guitar-based pop-rockers, written from the same post-modern perspective of an NYC hipster with serious relationship problems. Since I cannot for the life of me identify with this perspective, and since the artistic personality of Julian Casa­blancas gets me indifferent at best and annoyed at worst, all I can do is try to concentrate on the music — like, are there any interesting guitar riffs? do the grooves make me want to headbang? does the twin guitar interplay brighten my mood? that sort of thing.

From that simple stance, ʽWhat Ever Happened?ʼ is quite a disheartening opener, because it puts the Strokes into flat-out shoegazing mode, just vamping out on one chord in total prostration mode, where even Julianʼs gurgling scream feels like a robotic, sleep-walking accompaniment. ʽReptiliaʼ is much better, picking up tempo, churning out a simple, but distinctive and memorable punk-pop riff and then reversing its tonality for the refrain. ʽAutomatic Stopʼ has a nice moment when the lead guitar comes in to weave a plaintive woman-tone melody in between the choppy syncopated reggae-pop chords of the rhythm, but you still have to chase the song for chemistry, rather than having it chase you in person. ʽ12:51ʼ is probably the best of the lot, because the melodic hook is doubled on vocals and that quirky synth-guitar at the same time. ʽYou Talk Way Too Muchʼ is boring; just how long is it possible to go on switching between those A and E chords, over and over and over again?..

Re-emerging back from the simple virtues and just as simple flaws of individual songs into the bigger picture, I would say that Room On Fireʼs principal crime is that it tries to be a little more moody and sentimental than its predecessor — now the songsʼ main reason for being so simple is not because these New York City lads just want to have some fun and get back to their roots, it is more like because they do not want to over-complexify things when telling you about their troubles. I do realize this is a gross generalization — Is This It was far from a completely blunt and mindless record, just as Room On Fire is not exactly a thirty-minute long metaphysical treatise. But the overall atmosphere, with its minimalist melodies, pensive lyrics, ever so slightly slowed-down tempos and mechanic singing, shows that The Strokes are already trying to jump over from their Please Please Me phase into at least their Rubber Soul one, and thatʼs way bigger a leap than such a band could ever handle. In their own words, "good try, we donʼt like it, good try, we wonʼt take that shit".