Best Albums of 2011: The Strokes - Angles

The Strokes is a band, which showed everybody back in 2001 after releasing their debut Is This It that guitar scene is not dead. I think that it is one of those memorable, unique albums that will still kick your ass even after 10 years after its release. There is no doubt that they will never release as good record as Is This It, however, this band shouldn't be considered dead and they proved it when Angles came out this year.

The Strokes were almost done after their third record First Impression Of Earth, which was released in 2006. After the tour in support of this LP, band went on hiatus and many believed they may not come back. Some also thought that it wouldn't be worth it to come back because their last record didn't earn much success. I have to agree that it is probably their worst album, even though I like there a several songs like "Electricityscape" or "Vision of Division".

However, they started working on their fourth record in 2009 and released Angles in March, 2011. Band stated that it is their first album on which everybody from band contributed. Funny thing is that they communicated mostly via internet because they were away from each other. I really can't imagine such collaboration, but maybe some people like it that way. Anyway, the album is really diverse probably because almost all members of the band worked on different projects during the break. That way everybody brought something else to the table and you can really hear it.

I like diversity of this album a lot, but in my opinion, it is little short when we consider they were working on it almost two years. Despite that, there is nothing I can bitch about. I enjoy listening to every single song - it's got catchy songs ("Under Cover Of Darknes", "Taken For A Fool"), weird songs ("Machu Picchu", "Games"), slow song ("Call Me Back", "Life Is Simple In The Moonlight") and typical The Strokes tracks ("Metabolism", "Taken For A Fool").

They proved that they are not done yet and can still make a great record. We will have too see if they will continue in this trend with their next, fifth record.