The Strokes Begin Work On Album #5

After headlining several summer festivals this year, many hints were dropped by various members of the Strokes that a 5th album is on the agenda. With 5 year break between First Impressions of Earth and Angles, it would appear that the follow up will arrive in a much shorter amount of time.



Bassist Nikolai Fraiture tweeted
Number 5 is alive! (No disassemble)

The Angles sessions were somewhat troubled; the band didn't seem to be recording as a unit but as 5 seperate parts being pieced together. Vocalist Julian Casablancas often recorded his vocals separately and kept his distance from the other members, supposedly to encourage them to bring more to the table. (Casablancas has sole writer's credit on almost every Strokes song before Angles)The 4th album really divided fans, with some claiming it to be the band's best work and others writing it off as garbage. Overall the opinion on Angles seemed to be positive though, I'd say it was the 2nd most well received record after the game changing Is This It. It'l be interesting to see what methods of writing and recording the band use this time around.



Three members of the band are on twitter:
@N_Fraiture - Nikolai Fraiture
@Casablancas_J - Julian Casablancas
@alberthammondjr - Albert Hammond jr

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This Year's Best Prospects

Hello and happy new year everyone! 2012 is looking like a major year for music. To be honest I felt the majority of mainstream releases last year were a little lacklustre. Everyone went mad on Adele around March, Foo Fighters and The Strokes put out something a little different, Coldplay stuck to their guns. I was personally disappointed by RHCP's latest effort, I'm not quite sure if they ever will reach the Blood Sugar / Stadium Arcadium heights.

This year we can expect studio album number 4 from The Killers, who are apparently moving back to the more guitar led sounds of Hot Fuss and Sam's Town, after the rather mellow, electro-tinted Day & Age. I think that sounds like a good move for them. They have been incredible since getting signed but many (myself not included) felt that their last album couldn't quite match the first two.

The Vaccines, who hit the UK scene pretty hard this year with an album recorded before their fame are expected to return in 2012 with a follow up to What did you expect from The Vaccines?

It is also possible Muse's follow up to the Grammy award winning The Resistance will surface toward the end of the year, although in all honesty we can probably expect early 2013 for that. Pictures have been posted by the band from the studio, mainly on front man Matt Bellamy's twitter page.


Usher, Madonna, Green Day and Mumford & Sons are also due back. With the latter of those four I'm eager to see if they can take their sound to a new level. If not, the 'one trick pony' tag could stick for good.

Away from the charts, Tame Impala, who's debut album Innerspeaker I reviewed last week are rumoured to have already finished album #2. Ex-Chili Peppers guitarist John Frusciante is also back in the lab again after a 3 year break. He has been collaborating with R&B vocalist Truth Hurts amongst presumed others.

Is there an upcoming release you are looking forward to? I'd love to hear your views.

Stay tuned for a good year for music in 2012.

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