Listening to Is This It, the debut album from the Strokes, is like entering a time warp of sorts. The production values are low, which makes the whole thing sound like a lost jewel from 1979. Looking at the black-and-white mug shots of the band in the booklet, you feel certain that someone has to be wearing a "Disco Sucks" T-shirt. This anachronistic sense is enhanced by the fact that the Strokes crank out the kind of New York-style post-punk that hasn't been seen since new wave hit and messed everything up.
The album opens with the sound of electronic blips and bleeps grinding to a prophetic halt. There are no turntables or sequencers here. The closest this five-piece band comes to anything n is the drum machine and synthesizer that open "Hard to Explain" (and even this song sounds like it was written before 1982). Everything else on Is This It represents the kind of grimy, pub-'n'-club guitar rock that today's music gurus like to pretend that they liked back in the early '80s.
The Strokes play with the raw power and emotion of a road-trained bar band. The lead singer seems to put his whole body into whatever he's singing (picture Jim Morrison twisting on stage). They also know how to pick their influences. "Someday" opens sounding like David Bowie's "Modern Love," while the truly rollicking "Last Nite" has a backbeat reminiscent of Iggy Pop's "Lust for Life".
Is This It brings a return to the time before flannel and big hair when leather and the down-and-dirty rock 'n' roll of the Velvet Underground ruled the stages.
