Room on Fire

Following up to an amazing first album is a daunting task for any band who's made it big on their first try. The Strokes were facing one such task in 2003 when they launched their sophomore effort "Room on Fire", because comparisons to their landmark "Is This It" were inevitable. It's hard not to compare the two albums: both have eleven songs, both run approximately the same, and both are largely about the same things. Consider the band first, though. A laid-back, young, brash assortment of "garage-rock-revivalists", that surely were having the time of their lives. It's a stretch to expect a great deal of change (musically speaking) from guys like these. But if it's not broken, don't fix it, right?

The Strokes are ever ironic, and so is the album's first track, opening with another rhetorical question, a la "Is this it". "What Ever Happened?" jumps between romantic musings and more or less subtle jabs at critics ("Did they offend us and they want it to sound new?"), while being catchy all at once, no small task. The second track, "Reptilia" gives the album its name ("The room is on fire as she's fixing her hair"), and Casblancas yells his lungs out about "not trying hard enough", and it feels as though The Strokes aren't even breaking a sweat. The themes approached by the band in their debut are still here: "Automatic stop" is about a failed relationship, featuring the staccato guitar riffs that were ubiquitous in most alternative rock albums of the time (if you're sick of them already, blame not The Strokes, but all the imitators).

The Strokes deserve credit on this one: even songs about sad attempts at reaching the past are catchy as hell (what song up to here has not been?), "12:51" for example (with lyrics such as "The world is shutting out...for us. We were tense for sure, But we was confident... ").For the band, it appears life should be taken with a pinch of salt, especially when it's hard, or sad. This optimism feels like a breath of fresh air after the avalanche of angsty rock music from so-called "emotional" bands that came after. "You talk way too much" is a blast, one that makes up for any lost energy while keeping that ironic tone, always hovering between serious and laugh out loud moments ("You talk way too much/It's only the end").

"Between love and hate" is again about a failed relationship, and sometimes I wonder whether Casablancas has approached this particular subject one time too many. It only takes a chord or two to bring me back, because it's just too much fun to matter. "Meet me in the bathroom" is an obvious shout-out to their first album, and by this time listeners must have realized that "Room on fire" can be the soundtrack to mostly everybody's teenage years, and only a band a few years removed from adolescence can reignite that elusive spirit. The Strokes, it seems, can capture lightning in a bottle, and sell it back to us.

The melancholy "Under Control" exudes feels infectious, and is one of the few tracks this band has produced that feels like a confession, but it's not pathetic in the least. It feels more like a pat on a shoulder after realizing some things are impossible no matter how much you want them to be true. So even if "You are young, darling", it's only " For now, but not for long". You'd be hard pressed to find a more descriptive evocation of youth, just ask someone who's no longer young.

Taking the lyrics form "The way it is", and putting them on a slow ballad tune would result in a blueprint for all the James Blunt wannabes that kept on popping up these last few years like mushrooms after rain. Lyrics like that have no place being yelled around, it doesn't feel right for any serious musician. Serious is not an entry in The Strokes' dictionary, at least not in the traditional sense ("Without humor or expression of happiness; grave in manner or disposition; earnest; thoughtful; solemn."), and their energy is viral. No other band could have pulled off an album like this, not like this. "The end has no end" is almost schizophrenic, with disjointed lyrics, but is quotable almost line for line ("Said I can do a lot of things, but I can't do that/Two steps forward, then three steps back"). It's reminiscent of "Hard To Explain", in that you need to listen to it for a few times before actually understanding what they meant. The final song is a distillation of everything that came before it: it's a song about failing (with a title like "I can't win", that comes as no surprise), but not caring about the vicissitudes life throws in front of you.

If you compare "Room On Fire" to "Is This It", you'll surely feel it comes up short. But that would mean you have not been paying attention, because it's not about that. It never was. It's about being young even if you're not anymore, about smiling when you should frown, about looking fate in the eye and laughing. Some people can't even say those things, let alone do them. The Strokes do it with the ease a child plays with his cubes, and maybe that's the crux of their legacy: no matter how hard, they made it seem so fucking easy.

10/10 Stefan