The Strokes – Reality Awaits

Reinventing standard rock tropes in Costa Rica, New York’s indie royalty return with an adventurous, occasionally weird, and deeply rewarding seventh chapter.

Six years after taking home a Grammy for The New Abnormal, The Strokes return with Reality Awaits, their seventh studio album and perhaps their most intrigue-filled project to date. Arriving via Cult Records/RCA, the record reunites the classic New York quintet (Julian Casablancas, Nick Valensi, Albert Hammond Jr., Nikolai Fraiture, and Fabrizio Moretti) with legendary producer Rick Rubin.

Recorded in the lush quiet of Costa Rica before being pieced together across global studios, Reality Awaits is the sound of a veteran band operating with complete creative freedom. The early singles, “Going Shopping” and “Falling out of Love,” teased a tension between the clipped, interlocking guitar vocabulary that built their legend and a desire to wander into looser, uncharted sonic territory. Across its tight nine-song tracklist, the album delivers on both fronts.

“I’ve been thinking about what I wanna say / But I’m an old man, at least that’s what they tell me anyway.”

— Julian Casablancas, “Going Shopping”

Tropical Isolation meets Post-Punk Precision

Rubin’s signature touch is everywhere on Reality Awaits. Rather than coating the tracks in slick modern sheen, the production emphasizes spatial breathing and dry organic textures. Nick Valensi and Albert Hammond Jr.’s guitars coil around each other with familiar, mathematical elegance, anchored by Nikolai Fraiture’s steady bass rhythms and Fab Moretti’s clinical, clockwork drumming.

Yet, frontman Julian Casablancas refuses to let the band rest on nostalgia. Embracing the vocal experimentation of his work with The Voidz, Casablancas weaves through subtle pitch shifts, dry vocal filters, and conversational, almost off-the-cuff ad-libs. On opener “Psycho Shit,” he sounds relaxed and unhurried, deconstructing his own rock-star mythos over spiky, danceable art-punk riffs.

TRACKLIST:
1. Psycho Shit
2. Going Shopping
3. Dine N’Dash
4. Lonely in the Future
5. Falling out of Love
6. Going to Babble On
7. Liar’s Remorse
8. The Fruits of Conquest
9. Tyrants of the Mellow Moon

Standout Moments & Sonic Detours

• “Dine N’Dash” & “Lonely in the Future”: A classic double-header for long-time fans. Both tracks deliver the effortless, bounce-heavy post-punk grooves that made the band world-famous, packed with urgent vocal hooks and bright, soaring guitar solos.

• “Falling out of Love”: The album’s hypnotic emotional core. Stretching past the six-minute mark, the track swells into atmospheric synths and layered acoustic guitars, offering one of the most cinematic arrangements in their entire discography.

• “The Fruits of Conquest”: A jagged, high-bpm centerpiece where Casablancas delivers frantic, rhythmic mantras over a pulsing synth-bass line.

• “Tyrants of the Mellow Moon”: The ambitious closer fuses 1980s arena-rock guitar flourishes with melancholic, Radiohead-esque chords before dissolving into a spoken-word fadeout.

Reality Awaits isn’t an attempt to chase the ghost of Is This It, nor is it a play for mainstream pop stardom. Instead, it captures five lifelong collaborators having genuine fun, upending fan expectations, and proving that two decades into their career, their modern evolution remains as intriguing as ever.