By 2026, most bands in The Strokes’ position would be selling refinement: cleaner hooks, warmer nostalgia, fewer risks. Reality Awaits does the opposite. The first thing you have to accept is that Julian Casablancas’ processed voice is not a production flourish sitting on top of otherwise normal songs. It is the main event, the album’s biggest joke, and sometimes its biggest problem. I think that’s also why the record is worth taking seriously. On the right songs, the AutoTune turns his deadpan into another rhythmic part, almost like a synth line that keeps needling the melody. On the weaker ones, it covers up tunes that probably would have landed harder with less interference. That push and pull is the whole story here.
AutoTune is the gamble, not the garnish
The opening run makes that clear fast. “Psycho Shit,” track one, starts with an ominous arpeggio, and for the first minute or so the band lets the tension build instead of rushing to a chorus. When Casablancas comes in, the vocal treatment doesn’t soften the song or make it futuristic in some vague way; it makes him sound slightly detached from the band, which is exactly the point. By the time the song reaches its long climb near the back half, that artificial edge starts acting like pressure inside the arrangement. Then “Dine n’Dash” swerves the other way. As a second track, it’s a smart bit of sequencing because it breaks the mood that “Psycho Shit” sets up and replaces it with something more jagged and unstable. This is where the record starts to feel less like a sequel to The New Abnormal and more like a cousin to the stranger instincts Casablancas usually saves for The Voidz.
That comparison matters, but only up to a point. What keeps Reality Awaits from turning into a side-project detour is that the band still writes in clean, clipped shapes. The melodies are concise even when the presentation is messy. That’s why the vocal processing works as often as it does: it’s rubbing against tight garage rock songwriting, not replacing it.
The hooks survive the sabotage
The pleasant surprise on this album is how often The Strokes still sound like The Strokes underneath all the distortion and wisecracks. “Lonely in the Future,” the shortest cut here at just over three minutes, is a good example. It doesn’t overstay its idea, and that economy helps. The song feels like the band remembering that one of their oldest strengths is getting in, landing a hook, and getting out before the trick wears thin. Even with the processed vocal sitting on top, the bones are sturdy.
“Going Shopping” may be the clearest case for the album’s central argument. The melody is immediate, the joke lands, and the vocal effect actually sharpens the song’s dry tone instead of smothering it. There’s a mild bounce to it that makes the sarcasm go down easier, and the guitar part keeps it tethered to the band’s usual snap. This is one of the cuts where the bit and the songwriting lock together. You can hear why some people have pointed to it as one of the record’s best. For me, it’s the song that proves the band is not hiding behind processing. They’re using it as arrangement, the same way another group might use a keyboard line or extra percussion to tilt the mood a few degrees off center.
The best songs don’t ask you to ignore the effect; they make it pull its weight.
When the detours hit, and when they stall out
Still, the criticism around this record is fair. Even at nine songs, Reality Awaits can feel longer than it is, mostly because several tracks insist on their own strangeness a little too hard. “Falling out of Love” is where I hear that problem most clearly. There’s a strong melody in there, maybe one of the strongest on the album, but the vocal treatment keeps tugging your attention away from it. Instead of heightening the tension, it starts to feel like a screen between the song and the band. That’s the danger of building a record around one aggressive idea: once it stops helping, it really stops helping.
The later stretch softens the impact too. Not because the songs are bad, but because the album’s best trick is surprise, and surprise has diminishing returns. A few of these detours read as playful self-sabotage; a few others just read as self-sabotage. That’s where I think Reality Awaits falls short of The New Abnormal, which had a cleaner sense of momentum and a more reliable instinct for when to let a song simply be catchy.
Standouts show the record at its smartest and most frustrating
If you want the album in miniature, go to “Going Shopping” and “The Fruits of Conquest.” The first is concise and pointed, a catchy dead-eyed little song that understands exactly how much weirdness it can carry. “The Fruits of Conquest,” on the other hand, is looser and loopier, with hand drums and a tropical slink that push the band somewhere close to disco-rock without losing their stiffness. I actually like that one a lot because it sounds like the group testing how far they can stretch their minimalism before it snaps. Around the middle, when the groove settles in, the vocal processing stops feeling like a mask and starts functioning like another percussive texture.
That said, the opener pair remains the album’s strongest statement. “Psycho Shit” and “Dine n’Dash” are clever, catchy, and a little deranged in a way the rest of the record only intermittently matches. They set up an album that promises danger and dry humor in equal measure. The rest of the tracklist delivers enough of that promise to keep things interesting, even if not every turn pays off.
Where Reality Awaits lands
I don’t hear Reality Awaits as a failed experiment, and I don’t hear it as a clean triumph either. I hear a band deciding that polish would be the boring move and accepting the mess that comes with that choice. Some of these songs absolutely get in their own way. Some of them also do something I did not expect from a 2026 Strokes record: they feel mischievous, lean, and genuinely alive. If The New Abnormal was the album that reminded people how good this band could sound playing to its strengths, Reality Awaits is the one that asks whether those strengths can survive being bent out of shape. Most of the time, they do. Not elegantly, not consistently, but often enough that I keep coming back. Call it a solid 7/10: uneven, occasionally irritating, but never boring.
If you can live with AutoTune being part of the joke and part of the structure, Reality Awaits is worth your time, so give it a listen.
Tracklist
- Psycho Shit 5:23
- Dine n’Dash 5:02
- Lonely in the Future 3:12
- Falling out of Love 6:22
- Going to Babble On 4:06
- Going Shopping 4:21
- Liar’s Remorse 4:50
- The Fruits of Conquest 5:16
- Tyrants of the Mellow Moon 4:12
