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Julian Casablancas Phrazes for the Young review
In the new dawn of electro we welcome back Julian Casablancas, the voice behind the best guitar songs of the decade. Without his other strokers, he's left to put his own sounds together and in Phrazes for the Young he's written a short reiteration of his lyrical, musical and vocal might.
Julian Casablancas' first solo project starts with classic Strokes sounds in the opening rhythm of "Out of the Blue", but after a minute or so you start to suspect that there is actually something out of the blue about the album as electro tones begin to seep into the tune. The seep becomes a wash with "Left & Right in the Dark" and then the wash becomes a flood in the "11th Dimension". The album's first single has placed Julian Casablancas as the Manhawke or La Stroke of the decade he inspired and you can't help admiring him for coming back with something new. The best thing about the album though is that it brings back a voice that we all know and love to a radio cluttered with nowherenears.
Unfortunately, "Phrazes for the Young" doesn't end as well as it opens and by the time you get to "Tourist" you're sort of back to square one; wishing for the return of The Strokes. That said, I've only listened to it a few times, so it'll probably become my favourite record of the winter months and I'll end up retracting the negatives. However, there's one thing that won't change. I'll always want The Strokes to return with the same energy, cool and crash as they had when I saw them for the first time, headlining the V festival back in the glory days of 2005.
3.7/5
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