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Avg: 4.0 (70 ratings)
- Date Released: September 25, 2001
- Genre: Alternative/Punk
- Label: Rough Trade
A thrill of adrenalised and confused bigyouthfulness.
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We Say...
The kick-start album of the alleged "garage rock revival," the Strokes' debut bracingly combines musical precision and knowing attitude with funny, all-over-the-place, clichéd yet credible lyrics about late-teenagerhood (nostalgia already from singer-writer Julian Casablancas, all of 23 when Is This It came out in October 2001). "Barely Legal," a contradictory "My Way" for school-leavers, epitomises the Casablancas kid's misunderstood misunderstandings: "I should've worked much harder/ I should've just not bothered." Then, given acceptance that it never starts making sense because "life" doesn't, This Is It just works hard and well.
Nick Valensi and Albert Hammond Jr.'s guitars counterbalance gung-gung punk urgency with splashy chords and little twists of colour. Nikolai Fraiture's bass shifts between gloomy throb and early-Beatles McCartneyish driving melody. And Fab Moretti jumps on the drums like the beating heart of a band should. This is a dynamite group capturing the time of their lives (so far) — and somehow, recorded just before 9/11 but released immediately after, it hit the spot for a mass of others too. Probably, back then, the Strokes played better than they wrote, but the core of the album — "Barely Legal," "Someday," "Alone Together," "Last Nite" and "Hard to Explain" — is a thrill of adrenalised and confused bigyouthfulness. -
They Say...
Blessed and cursed with an enormous amount of hype from the British press, the Strokes prove to be one of the few groups deserving of their glowing reviews. Granted, their high-fashion appeal and faultless influences -- Television, the Stooges, and especially Lou Reed and the Velvets -- have "critics' darlings" written all over them. But like the similarly lauded Elastica and Supergrass before them, the Strokes don't rehash the sounds that inspire them -- they remake them in their own image. On the Modern Age EP, singles like Hard to Explain, and their full-length debut, Is This It, the N.Y.C. group presents a pop-inflected, second-generation take on late-'70s New York punk, complete with raw, world-weary vocals, spiky guitars, and an insistently chugging backbeat. However, their songs also reflected their own early-twenties lust for life; singer/songwriter/guitarist Julian Casablancas and the rest of the band mix swaggering self-assurance with barely concealed insecurity on "The Modern Age" and reveal something akin to earnestness on "Barely Legal" -- a phrase that could apply to the Strokes themselves -- in the song's soaring choruses. The group revamps "Lust for Life" on "New York City Cops" and combines their raw power and infectious melodies on "Hard to Explain," arguably the finest song they've written in their career. Nearly half of Is This It consists of their previously released material, but that's not really a disappointment since those songs are so strong. What makes their debut impressive, however, is that the new material more than holds its own with the tried-and-true songs. "Is This It" sets the joys of being young, jaded, and yearning to a wonderfully bouncy bassline; "Alone Together" and "Trying Your Luck" develop the group's brooding, coming-down side, while "Soma," "Someday," and "Take It or Leave It" capture the Strokes at their most sneeringly exuberant. Able to make the timeworn themes of sex, drugs, and rock & roll and the basic guitars-drum-bass lineup seem new and vital again, the Strokes may or may not be completely arty and calculated, but that doesn't prevent Is This It from being an exciting, compulsively listenable debut when those are few and far between. [In light of the World Trade Center disaster, the track "New York City Cops" was pulled from the U.S. release].
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| 01. |  |
Is This It |
2:35 |
|
| 02. | |
The Modern Age |
3:32 |
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| 03. | |
Soma |
2:37 |
|
| 04. | |
Barely Legal |
3:58 |
|
| 05. | |
Someday |
3:07 |
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| 06. | |
Alone, Together |
3:12 |
|
| 07. | |
Last Nite |
3:17 |
|
| 08. | |
Hard To Explain |
3:47 |
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| 09. | |
New York City Cops |
3:36 |
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| 10. | |
Trying Your Luck |
3:27 |
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| 11. | |
Take It Or Leave It |
3:16 |
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11 Total Tracks, 36:24 Total Length
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Credits
- Greg Calbi - Mastering // Gordon Raphael - Producer // Steve Ralbovsky - A&R // The Strokes - Main Performer // Fabrizio Moretti - Drums // Nikolai Fraiture - Bass // Julian Casablancas - Vocals // Nick Valensi - Guitar
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