Perhaps Julian Casablancas peaked too soon. The huge cultural impact of the Strokes’ 2001 debut, ‘Is This It’, meant that by the time his songwriting had blossomed - on 2006’s ‘First Impressions of Earth’ - many had tired of their sound and gone elsewhere.
Maybe that is why Casablancas’ second band, the Voidz, have eschewed straight indie-pop in favour of abject absurdity and political proselytising. On their second album, ‘Virtue’, the results are occasionally wonderful.
All Wordz Are Made Up manages to combine joyous grooves with chunky synths and varied (if scattershot) vocal layering. Similarly, Permanent High School, Wink and Lazy Boy marry different tones, recording techniques and textures with rigid, Strokes-esque chords and vocal melodies.
However, this is also where the album struggles: the band appear to have employed a panoply of different effects and arrangements to bolster pedestrian song-craft. That is demonstrated most fully on AlieNNatioN, which begins with curiously jagged rhythm before dropping into a more regular groove.
While the chords are more interesting here, a cogent song is hard to hear. Furthermore, Casablancas works hard to undermine overt melody with a laconic and ad-hoc vocal. While this cut ‘n’ paste aesthetic lands somewhere near Beck’s ‘Mindnite Vultures’, the song - and album in general - lacks the humour and sexuality of that record.
There is a lot to like on ‘Virtue’, but also a lot that leaves you cold. While it is patchy by design, its surrealism feels slightly unconvincing. There are artists who have dedicated their life’s work to that movement, so a rock star dipping into it as a side project is likely to deliver mediocre results by comparison.
And yet, this is not a bad album - as some have claimed - it just lacks cogency and structural integrity. Actually, if ‘Virtue’ were offered up as a band’s first record, it’s safe to say that any major label would run a mile. Maybe that is what Casablancas is getting at with the Voidz - he now seeks to eschew commercial songwriting completely, and begin again. If not, God knows what he’s trying to do.
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