Phrazes for the Young - Julian Casablancas

A real grower this one; on a first listen, it sounds as though Casablancas has taken his favourite elements of The Strokes and poured them into his first solo offering. But it becomes clear that the influence offered by Bright Eye's Mike Mogis and Nate Walcott has drawn Casablancas in slightly new directions too.

Out of the Blue and Left and Right in the Dark catapult the listener into a world in which Casablancas both laments his own growing up and the changing times in which he lives in. But it's best expressed with this lyric:

All that I can do is sing a song of faded glory

And all you got to do is sit there, look great, and make 'em horny.

It's not so much a diatribe or eulogy to growing up as it is his own small observations of how things have moved on. And when he blasts into 11th Dimension and drops more encouragement for his audience as to stripping away attempts at being, for want of a better word, cool, one starts to perceive where the album title might have come from. A personal favourite exhortation is

And don't be shy, oh no, at least deliberately

'Cause no one really cares or wanders why anymore

Oh I've got music coming out of my hands and feet and kisses...

But there's plenty of good stuff in there.

The first really dip of the record, only eight tracks long as it is, is with the two more ballad-esque centrepiece tracks, 4 Chords of the Apocalypse and Ludlow St. Here it seems Julian was looking for something more lyrical, but the change of pace doesn't fit entirely satisfactorily with the rest of the album, and Ludlow St in particular sounds too croonery and doesn't show Julian at his best.

But then we launch into the final triad of the record, and what a triad indeed. Rivers of Brakelights is my personal favourite of the album, and the word play with the two repeated refrains is cerebrally enchanting:

Getting the hang of it, getting the hang of it

Timing is everything, timing is everything
Getting the hang of it, timing is everything
Getting the hang of it, timing is everything
Timing the hang of it, getting is everything
Getting the time of it, everything hangs on this

Hanging the getting of, timing the getting of.

(Not best shown there, but check out the track!) Meanwhile Glass and Tourist, perhaps the tracks with the biggest Bright Eyes influence, provide a fitting close to a rip-roaring album. One of the things that's most enjoyable about this album is that even with only eight songs, Casablancas has taken the time to flesh them out, and they do sound fully formed and fully imagined. That's why repeated listens pay dividends, as it takes some time to pick through some of the more layered work that's been laid down.

An excellent year closer and an uplifting, exhortatory effort from The Strokes' frontman.

~~~

released November 2009