Though The Strokes largely self-recorded Angles, their first album in five years, in guitarist Albert Hammond, Jr.'s studio, the album's production is at times so indebted to '80s new wave it could have been recorded by The Cars' Ric Ocasek. The cover art makes those '80s influences explicit, but promises a more committed makeover than Angles actually delivers. On the tracks that don't seem intended to soundtrack a clip of Judd Nelson running triumphantly in slow motion, the band clings to the sound of their 2001 debut, with the same jaunty tempos, tight rhythms and cigarette-bumming guitar riffs. That constant ping-ponging between 2001 and 1983 can make Angles a frustrating listen, but when the band locks into the right groove on the wiry "Taken For A Fool," the Billy Joel-biting rocker "Gratisfaction" or the hard-strutting single "Under Cover of Darkness," it hardly matters. A disjointed Strokes album is better than no Strokes album.
Also this week:
* Jennifer Hudson releases her second album, I Remember Me
* Green Day's live CD/DVD, Awesome as F**k, will almost certainly outsell Soundgarden's (very) belated concert disc, Live on I5
* Panic! at the Disco's third album, Vices & Virtues, is their first since half the band split in 2009
* Of course Chris Brown would mark the release of his new album, F.A.M.E, with an alleged glass-shattering tirade after a "Good Morning America" appearance
* Pharoahe Monche honors the spirit of hip-hop circa '93-'94 on his new W.A.R. (We Are Renegades)
* And Gucci Mane follows up last year's crossover-minded The Appeal: Georgia's Most Wanted with the back-to-basics The Return of Mr. Zone 6.
