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Featured Reviews:
When The Strokes' popularity soared about a year ago I didn't know anything about them. Except one thing. The hype. It's a fact that normally makes me reluctant towards giving the hyped band in question a real chance.
Read more about Is This It? on Stylus Magazine
''Is This It'' bows down before all the trademarks of pre-1977 rock: off-kilter guitar solos, half-buried vocals (à la ''Louie, Louie''), attitude-heavy slurring (by singer Julian Casablancas), primitive tom-tom rhythms (shades of the Velvets' Moe Tucker), and the raw, muddy sonics of garage-band 45s.
Read more about Is This It? on Entertainment Weekly
Able to make the timeworn themes of sex, drugs, and rock & roll and the basic guitars-drum-bass lineup seem new and vital again, the Strokes may or may not be completely arty and calculated, but that doesn't prevent Is This It? from being an exciting, compulsively listenable debut...
Read more about Is This It? on All Music Guide
Blessed and cursed with an enormous amount of hype from the British press, the Strokes prove to be one of the few groups deserving of their glowing reviews.
Read more about Is This It? on All Music Guide
For now, the Strokes have mastered their style; they have yet to come up with the substance to match it.... But the music leaves no doubts - more joyful and intense than anything else I've heard this year.
Read more about Is This It? on Rolling Stone