Reality Awaits is a fascinating yet tortured delusion from The Strokes

The NYC indie rock band’s understanding of the present has been shaped and portrayed by the fusion of technology and music, from the introduction to the shapeshifting mellotron in the 2006 dejected political ballad “Ask Me Anything”, to the use of mournfully nostalgic, sports arena synths of the aimless 2020 track “At The Door”, to the addition of punishing autotune and buzzsaw guitars in 2026’s “Psycho Shit.” Tech became its own character in Strokes history, bending to the will of its composers but still rebelling against the pleasant, cool melodies of a rock tune.

On this latest record, The Strokes have finally reached an emotional breaking point with the ailing world, and their music caves into the pressure. They are unforgiving: their protagonists are losers: out-of-touch billionaires fetishising the middle class (“Going Shopping”), loveless couch dwellers addicted to AI chatbots (“Liar’s Remorse”), spineless corporate drones (“Going To Babble On”), and violent war hawks (“The Fruits of Conquest”), all depleted of humanity and real feeling outside of destruction. The accompanying music is a shocking, unexpected carnival ride: wacky vocal effects, skittish drumlines, trembling bass notes, and messy guitars disrupt the groove at all levels. At times, it’s discordant torture, but it’s relentless and meaty.

In Reality Awaits, the ugliest, cruelest thoughts are given a bodied character. “Going Shopping” is a loser’s anthem, personifying bourgeois boredom in a mild yet catchy banger. The chirpy synths, Valensi and Hammond Jr’s beachy guitars, and Moretti’s snippy drum line make the song dazzle, but Casablancas’ blasé vocal performance curdles a fantasy into a nightmare. “The worse reality gets, the less you want to hear about it,” he mutters in a jaded, matter-of-fact tone before drowning himself out in the glaring, artificial processing of autotune to indulge in kitschy American fantasies like the mall, the suburbs, and the patriotic Red. “The Fruits Of Conquest” begins as a sinuous track about glorifying violence smoothed over by hypnotic congas, a looping electric guitar riff, and Casablancas’ whistling falsettos. It takes minutes to sour, working through two verses of overthinking before locking into a rhythm that drains the humanity out of the band. Hammond Jr’s guitar scrapes against the ear in its tense, high pitch; Casablancas repeats “I’m a leech!” until his voice distorts into reverb flub. While there are moments where the vocal distortion gets out of hand (“Falling Out Of Love”) or borderline unlistenable (“Psycho Shit”, “Tyrants of the Mellow Moon”), its plasticky, cold, and unfeeling sheen underscores the depravity of the lyrics.

The new album, however, struggles with an overwhelming insecurity that steamrolls some of the more personal reflections. “Lonely in the Future” takes pride in the band’s legacy, even if it comes in the form of a slight diss track. The rhythm section rips into the song immediately, mellowing into a catchy indie rock groove with a futuristic bend. Of all the songs, this one drops the mean-spirited satire to instead celebrate The Strokes’ artistry (“And in a hundred thousand days from now, I’ll say / I did that yesterday when I was a kid”), but its intentions get muddled once Casablancas cloaks his upbeat, momentous vocal performance in a jerky, ageless autotune. “Liar’s Remorse” also unleashes devastation with a poem that imbues a character study with self-flagellation. The band enters a doo-wop trance, with raw, resonant harmonies and a singular, plucky guitar supporting the lead singer’s clearest melody yet. But, the pitch correction swoops in like a defense mechanism, cutting off the song’s blood supply. In these rarer moments of introspection, Casablancas is afraid of his own voice – of sounding older, weaker, gruffer. These unnecessary flashes of insecurity undermine the otherwise straightforward, non-theatrical pieces.

The Strokes capitalise on the cultural feeling of absurdism, delusion, and emotional collapse through twisted, hall of mirror versions of themselves. While the execution of their vision fumbles – mostly just in the vocal production, as the band fire out impeccable numbers (“Dine N’Dash”, “Going To Babble On”) – their concept remains one of the tightest in their discography. At least The Strokes don’t give up on their desire to poeticise chaos, even when futility about the world consumes their every thought.