What immediately becomes most apparent when listening to The Voidz for the first time is the unmistakably familiar voice one hears from the outset, the voice that catapulted an unlikely mix of Manhattan prep school boys from their Swiss boarding school beginnings to the apex of rock n roll glory at the turn of the century. Strokes lead singer Julian Casablancas was just 22 years old back in 2001 when the hip youthful New York quintet released their first album. Since then Rolling Stone Magazine has ranked Is This It number 8 on their list of 100 Best Debut Albums Of All Time.
Now 40 years old the middle-aged Casablancas continues to be part of the phenomena that is the Strokes in spite of the fact that the band has been on a six year long and counting recording hiatus. In the interim Casablancas switched day jobs to front The Voidz, a band which first began taking shape almost a decade ago as touring support for Casablancas’ first and only solo album Phrazes For The Young from 2009. Credited as Julian Casablancas + The Voidz on their 2014 debut album Tyranny the sextet, whose members include Jeff Kite (keyboards) Alex Carapetis (drums) Jake Bercovici (bass) Jeramy Gritter (guitar) and Amir Yaghmai (guitar) rebranded themselves simply The Voidz in late 2017 in order to reflect the emerging collaborative nature of the ever evolving project.
All but one of the 15 tracks featured on their latest album Virtue, released March 30, 2018 on Casablancas’ own Cult Records, are credited to The Voidz, conversely Casablancas himself took sole writing credit for much of its predecessor four years earlier. Not only is the songwriting shared this time around, four of the six bandmates aptly display their passion for modern electronic music throughout with Kite, Bercovici, Gritter and Yaghmai taking turns at the keyboards helping further differentiate The Voidz pleasing EDM infused pop rock from The Strokes millennial revivalism of New York underground garage rock.
In many ways Virtue suffers from an overabundance of riches and could use some trimming down, its sprawling 58 minutes help contribute to the records overall lack of center and focus. In this instance less would certainly have been more. In spite of itself much of the record succeeds on the strength of Casablancas’ far reaching abilities as a perennially engaging and charismatic frontman, his unique phrasing and vocal prowess at the forefront of much of what works best on the album. Virtue has all the joy and abandon of a Strokes record without the baggage.
Rating 7.5/10
Star Rating 3.5/5
2018 Song Of The Day Club Album Review 31/52