The Strokes - Angles

Angles is the fourth studio album by the American rock band The Strokes, originally released in March 2011 via RCA Records.

The Strokes were formed in New York City in 1998 by Julian Casablancas (lead vocals), Nick Valensi (guitar, keyboard, backing vocals), Albert Hammond, Jr. (rhythm guitar, keyboard, backing vocals), Nikolai Fraiture (bass) and Fabrizio Moretti (drums, percussion), and since the band's 2001 debut Is This It, the group have been met with widespread critical acclaim.

After touring in support of First Impressions of Earth, The Strokes went on an extended hiatus in 2007, and then regrouped two years later to begin writing new material for a fourth album. The album took more than two years to materialize, with the band recording live demos of 18 songs before heading into Avatar Studios in New York with producer Joe Chiccarelli, but without Casablancas.

Not long after recording began, however, the band became frustrated with both Chiccarelli's reserved production style and Casablancas' absence. Only one song from these recording sessions, "Life Is Simple in the Moonlight", remained in its original form on the album's track listing. The rest of the songs were either scrapped or reworked by the band with engineer Gus Oberg at guitarist Albert Hammond, Jr.'s home studio in Port Jervis, Upstate New York.

The vocals were recorded separately by Casablancas, but they were written together, in session, with the rest of the band present. Casablancas later said, "The funny thing about Angles is there was all that weird talk about recording it separately. We just had dinner in L.A. and we were all talking about it. And they forget that we sat in a room in a studio and were writing songs forever. That's where we did the whole record. All the parts, the songs, in a room, together. We recorded them with two mics, and that was the foundation, and then we were going to go track the official recording. That's when they went and recorded stuff, and when the 'Julian wasn't there,' BS or whatever [started]. That was just because logistically, we'd never done a record like that".

Bassist Nikolai Fraiture revealed that the album would be "a return to the basics", suggesting the songs would be of similar style to their acclaimed 2001 debut record, Is This It. "Sonically, I feel it's the album which should have been made between Room on Fire and First Impressions of Earth," he stated. However, the band decided to experiment with various production techniques, including MIDI electronic samples and Farfisa keyboards. They also overdubbed more guitars, and Casablancas toyed with vocal layers.

Media response to Angles was generally favourable; aggregating website Metacritic reports a normalized rating of 71%, based on 41 reviews. In his four-star review, David Fricke of Rolling Stone explained that the record was "worth the wait", and summed it up as "the first step away from the sound of their instant-classic debut. Instead of the rigid purity of 'Is This It,' the new album nods to the more expansive sound of the Velvet Underground's 1970 record, Loaded."

The first single from Angles was “Under Cover of Darkness”, was released in February 2011; the second single, “Taken for a Fool” was released in July 2011.

The record debuted at number 1 on the ARIA Albums chart (the Strokes' first time at the top spot in Australia, and the second time such a feat has occurred thus far in the band's career), and has gone on to achieve gold status in Australia. The album reached #4 in the US Billboard 200 Albums charts and #10 in the UK Albums charts.

This album is a 2023 limited edition reissue on purple coloured vinyl housed in a gatefold sleeve, pressed in Europe via RCA Records.