It’s annoying, I’m sure, but I find it really hard not to compare this to this year’s other solo release by the front man of an early-noughties arch indie hipster band, Julian Plenti.  Alternatively, I suppose, you could compare it to the Strokes’ last and best album, First Impressions of Earth.

In either comparison Phrazes For the Young fares really rather badly, in my opinion.  It comes across as a light, eighties synth-pop facsimile of the best Strokes stuff with all the bite removed.  And it certainly lacks the invention of Plenti’s inconsistent, but often very good, solo record.

To give Casablancas credit, he clearly has tried to take his music in a new direction, although unless he was intending to do this I suppose there would be little impetus to initiate a solo project in the first place.  Impetus, though, is what this release seems to be rather grievously lacking, unfortunately.  There’s just no zip to it.  No snarl, no bite, not even any pace, it’s just sluggish and lifeless and seems to be in dire need of jump-starting.

How the hell can you call a song 4 Chords of the Apocalypse and then give it no balls at all?

Julian Casablancas – Out of the Blue

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Julian Casablancas – 4 Chords of the Apocalypse

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