What's with all the hype and hysteria? It's as if rock and roll never happened. Well, exactly. For at least five years, rock and roll hasn't happened. At all.
Ladies and gentleman, please allow me to introduce you to The Strokes. You may have heard of them. In fact, judging by the column inches and UK music journalists irrationally spunking their pants, you may feel like you actually know these five New York City whippersnappers.
But is this it? Note the album title. There is no question mark. The Strokes have not put a toe, let alone a foot, wrong in their fabulously explosive rise to prominence in an Apollo like six months. There is no room for uncertainty. They know how good they are.
Not since Oasis in their gloriously unstoppable and unapologetic heyday have we been given the opportunity to embrace such straight-ahead, ebullient, desire-fuelled guitar music. No, drowned amidst a torrent of neutral, production-line robots, everything that The Strokes represent and want has been discarded. But it's all here and it's for you right now.
Five of these tracks have already been released, and yes, at times these five impossibly good-looking, ludicrously named and utterly NYC stylised kids do sound like The Velvet Underground, The Stooges and Television. But this is pop music and innovation or unhinged, deviant experimentation - something their obvious forefathers were injecting - is not on the Lexington Avenue menu.
So you get the thumping, grinding joy and genius rhythmic key and time signatures of 'The Modern Age', the propulsive 'street' jagged edge and golden chorus of 'New York City Cops' and the insouciant, teenage alienation and arrogance of 'Hard To Explain'.
Equally, 'Barely Legal' has the dirty lust - "I wanna steal your innocence" and decadent rebellion - "I should have worked much harder, I should have just not bothered" - so inherent in music of and for The Kids, while 'Last Nite' clangs, throbs and, ultimately, charms the sex organs from your pants.
Elsewhere, in the new material, The Strokes do not disappoint, and, importantly, don't f*ck about. Wiry, ascending album opener 'Is This It' sets you up for the short, sharp ride the listener is about to board, while 'Alone, Together' is as punk and furious as this album dares - and needs - to be.
By the close, as The Strokes' terminally cool frontman Julian Casablancas brings the urgent kerfuffle of 'Take It Or Leave It', you can barely hide, let alone ignore, lines such as "leave me alone, I'm in control", amid the obvious, incessant, goading call-to-arms.
'Is This It' lasts 37 minutes and is an instant smack in the face for all concerned. But, is this really 'it'? Well, If 'it' is expecting The Strokes to land anywhere near the smacked-out glory of 'White Light/White Heat', 'Funhouse' or 'Marquee Moon' anytime soon, then no.
However, if 'it' is about dragging guitar music kicking and screaming back from the dullards who currently hold sway, then yes. If 'it' is about style, a provocative attitude and barbed tunes written from the underbelly and produced in the underground, then again, yes.
You have arrived. And you are lucky.
by Ben Gilbert