The New Abnormal by The Strokes

The New Abnormal, the Strokes' sixth album, dropped on April 10, 2020, through Julian Casablancas' Cult label and RCA, and it ended the longest wait between albums the band ever made their fans sit through: seven years since Comedown Machine. Rick Rubin produced it, mostly at his Shangri-La studio in Malibu, with extra sessions around Los Angeles County and in Hawaii. The lineup is the same five guys who started it all in New York in 1998: Casablancas singing, Nick Valensi and Albert Hammond Jr. on guitars, Nikolai Fraiture on bass and Fabrizio Moretti on drums.

It sounds like a band that finally stopped arguing with its own legend: the guitars still interlock like gears, but there's room to breathe now, and Casablancas writes like a man who has grown up without going soft. Critics hailed it as a return to form, and it won the Strokes their first Grammy, Best Rock Album at the 63rd ceremony.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.