The Strokes - Reality Awaits (2026)

Best tracks: Liar's Remorse / Dine N'Dash

The album greets us with unbearable, trendy, Eastern-style Auto-Tune. The Strokes mix refined indie with garage dirt. Auto-Tune keeps popping up in the most unexpected and inappropriate places. Song-wise, it's completely standard indie rock, but it somehow tries to balance between dirt, something modern, and a detached cardboard sound. Of course, it's also a loud mix, because that's where Rick Rubin shines most on this record. "Liar's Remorse" unexpectedly delivers a sincerity and naturalness that stands out brightly, but appropriately, against the album's overall backdrop. The album ends much as it began.
Interestingly, the album turned out to be both shaky and coherent.
I don't want to criticize it too much, but there's nothing particularly worthy of praise either. The experiments, while surprising, are often in the wrong direction.