The man known for playing the simple guitar riffs and rythms in The Strokes has decided to come out from the shadow of Casablancas and gives us his solo debut.
An album entitled yours to keep had better be worth keeping. After my initial listens I don't know if it is. This is an enjoyable 12 songs, however I don't know if it will hold up against time. In four years would you have to pay me a grand to stop listening to it? Ten years? I don't think so. With that in mind, prepare yourself to be rocked gently and simply. It is hard to distinguish where the last strokes album ends and this one begins. There is more emphasis on melodic guitar lines, and a greater array of instrumentation, but the song structure is at a minimum, and arrangements remain simple, repetitive and under-developed. As far as song titles, Cartoon Music for Superheroes has the best name, 101 seems to have the best beginning, Holiday is the most "strokesque", Call and Ambulance and Scared seem the most out there to me, and i subsequently enjoy them the most. The vocals sound occasionally like Billy Bragg from the first Mermaid Ave album. There is an attempt at being experimental and folky, but the attempts fall flat. In the simplicity there are some songs that float above the rest as really likable, and then some filler to skip through.
Afterthought: So, I have had a revelation. I am picking back up writing this after a brief sojourn on an airplane, and I have decided this. I don't like this record. It underwhelms. There are a few that are Well...All Right, but overall I wouldn't tell anyone to go buy this, maybe to listen to it if a friend already has it—I have not yet been impressed by it. there, the more you know.