Strokes Guitarist Goes Solo

7/10
It’s the oldest trick in the book. Unassuming and spectacularly afro’d guitarist for a well known band with a diehard fan base goes off and works on his own project and makes his famous songwriter dad very pleased. Omar Rodriguez Lopez did it, minus the famous songwriter father. I am an admittedly big fan of the Strokes, I own all of the albums, yet I was also greatly disappointed by the latest release. I felt that there was a large gap in that album that needed to be filled in. Enter Yours To Keep. Albert Hammond Jr. constructs an entire album of sunny-side up pop tunes that help to make up for what the Strokes have seemed to lack of late.

The opening song “Cartoon Music for Superheroes” is an exercise in beach boys harmony and toy instruments while the guitars on “In Transit” recall “Automatic Stop” from Room on Fire. The songs contain a sort of nervous electricity and ennui that haunts the happy hollow edges of the melodies, but ultimately nothing ever becomes top heavy or too dark. The melodies take a strong precedence over anything else. The major surprise of this album by far is Albert’s voice. Coming in to this album my expectations were almost nill, quite honestly I wouldn’t have been surprised by an entirely instrumental album, but the voice that he finds on this record is warm and tender and plays across the notes well alongside the toy pianos, acoustic guitars and banjos which is the biggest advance. Albert maintains a much more expansive sonic palette than his mates and even trots out a horn section for the closing number on the record. This is a great album while not necessarily daring but with songs this likeable it doesn’t really matter if you think you’ve heard it before, that just means you already know you’ll like it.