Add another project to your Anticipated Albums of 2020 lists: while ringing in the new year at Brooklyn's Barclays Center, the Strokes announced they've got a new record on the way, and gave one of its tracks a live debut.
The new album would be the Strokes' first since 2013's Comedown Machine and second since 2011's Angles — which frontman Julian Casablancas took some jabs at right before launching into the new material.
Here's how it went down: during the encore, fans were chanting "Angles! Angles!" hoping to hear something off an LP that probably brings up some frustrating memories for the quintet. “I don’t remember Angles. What’s Angles?” quipped Casablancas. "What about a new song? Yeah, we’ve got a new album coming out soon. If you didn't know about it, surprise!"
The Strokes debuted a new song earlier this year (in fact, "The Adults Are Talking" was played earlier in the Dec. 31 show) but word of a 2020 album hadn't previously seeped out.
We don't have any further details about Strokes LP number six, but we do have video of this second new track — a slow-burning, Casablancas crooner titled "Ode to the Mets." It's difficult to determine if the lyrics actually have anything to do with the New York baseball club, but as Stereogum points out, you can check out the whole performance here:
Casablancas delievered the following speech before playing the new song:
2020, here we come. The 2010s, whatever the f–k they’re called, we took ‘em off. And now we’ve been unfrozen and we’re back. If you really love someone, you’ll be frozen with them. You know what? I don’t know what I say generally, and I ramble a lot, but I love you guys, and it’s a real honor to share the stage and this night with you guys.
Aside from some sporadic gigging, the Strokes were largely dormant through the later half of the 2010s. However, they did release a three-song EP in 2016 called Future Present Past — the first Strokes project to arrive on Casablancas' own imprint, Cult Records.
