The first line on the 2018 Arctic Monkeys album Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino is: “I just wanted to be one of The Strokes.” Now it’s finally happened, kind of – not to Alex Turner but to Arctic Monkeys drummer Matt Helders. He provides reliable stick work on Thoughtful Distress, a noisy standout among many on the fifth solo album by Strokes guitarist Albert Hammond Jr.
To be fair, most people fantasised about being in The Strokes at the start of the 2000s, when the New York quintet’s debut album, simultaneously acknowledging and dismissing the vast hype by being named Is This It, went double platinum in the UK and launched an armada of skinny retro rock bands. They gave the title to, and were the main subjects of, the book and documentary film Meet Me in the Bathroom, which Hammond Jr says he hasn’t watched, apparently displeased at the implication his best years are long behind him.
There’s plenty here to prove that he can still fire out sharp, melodious guitar lines with ease, not least because this album is a 19-track whopper. Its breadth, compared to the 35 minutes of its punkier predecessor Francis Trouble, means that he can get away with experiments that would sound stranger on a tighter collection. The opening song, 100-99, includes a passage sung with a metallic Auto-Tune effect and a verse from the rapper GoldLink. On Alright Tomorrow, a piano ballad that ends up with a disco feel, he doesn’t sing at all, leaving it to singer-songwriter (and daughter of Andie MacDowell) Rainey “Rainsford” Qualley.
He also wrote it with an unusual method that sounds like the premise of a romantic movie. When his publisher introduced him to singer-songwriter and poet Simon Wilcox, they began a two-year run of long, intimate phone calls that prompted her to type lyrics and hand deliver them to his house, without ever meeting him in person (though they have met since). “It weirdly sounds more like me than when I do it myself,” Hammond Jr has said, and there is a casualness to the words that adds to a general light, breezy feel.
When he strains for a big chorus, as on Fast Kitten, it’s clear why The Strokes made Julian Casablancas the singer. But when he can cruise easily along on a jangly guitar line, as on Old Man, or the Rolling Stones tribute Never Stop, he’s great company. It’s obvious why you’d still want to be in his band.
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