By Will Bernish ’12, Contributor

January 2006 saw the release of First Impressions of Earth, the Strokes’ highly anticipated but very disappointing third album. By the end of March 2009, when they decided to come back to work on a new album, all of the members (except guitarist Nick Valensi) had branched off into other projects. But even with the break of their hiatus, vocalist and former-chief songwriter Julian Casablancas remained removed, recording his vocal tracks in an entirely different location and giving them to, as well as conversing with the rest of the band via email. As a whole, Angles is unsurprisingly not near the quality their debut album Is This It is. While thankfully better than First Impressions of Earth, it just doesn’t have the charm that their 2001 hit had.

However, as an album on its own, Angles is satisfying enough. With its chopping guitar riff and quirky vocal work, opening track “Machu Picchu” serves as a propitious start to the new album. Relatively light, synthpop-inspired songs “Two Kinds of Happiness” and “Games” nicely contrast with the much heavier verses of “You’re So Right” and “Metabolism.” Many songs incorporate layered vocals, new to the Strokes, that are different but do not feel too far from home.

The real highlights of this album include “Machu Picchu” and “Under Cover Of Darkness,” the closest things

we have to the Strokes’ old sound with their syncopated riffs and smooth choruses, and the swingy “Gratisfaction.” Julian, having collaborated on all three, still retains most of the skill he had with Is This It. On the other hand, “Taken For A Fool,” written by Valensi, is exceptionally bland for The Strokes, offering no new elements while not reflecting on any successful formula they’ve had. Worse still is the closing track “Life Is Simple In The Moonlight,” which takes all of Julian’s self-hating lyrics from any typical Strokes song and layers it over sad, mellow instruments, instead of the more usual upbeat song structure.

Lyrically, Angles has no groundbreaking phrases or new attempts at content. However, “Under Cover Of Darkness” and “Metabolism” certainly stand out. The former, with lines such as “I’ve been out around this town/Everybody’s been singing the same song ten years,” referring to their widely popular earlier hit “Last Nite,” goes on about the conditions the Strokes as a band have been through for the past few years, and how hard it was to get everyone together. Darker lyrics including “Silently obsessed with death/Just like anyone I guess” and “I wanna be somebody . . . Like you, instead of me” help Julian convey even more self-loathing than usual in “Metabolism.”

Sadly, the Strokes will probably never be as good as they were right after Is This It released. But they are committed to making their next album differently; Nick Valensi admitted he “won’t do the next album [they] make like” Angles. For Julian Casablancas, this absolutely means getting back into his final-word position; he needs to take control again, like he did with Is This It and 2003’s release Room On Fire. Angles is a step in the right direction, up from First Impressions Of Earth, and it is certainly a fine album on its own, but knowing how good the Strokes were, it’s simply not enough for now.