The Strokes: Angles Vinyl LP

Why you'll love it

This RCA LP comes in a gatefold jacket, pressed in the EU. Angles debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 and in Canada, No. 3 in the UK, and gave the band its first No. 1 album in Australia.

This edition

Gatefold jacket
Pressed in the EU
Stereo mix

About the album

Five years is a long time between Strokes albums, and the band used it to open the songwriting up. The five wrote together in the room, and much of the record was reworked with engineer Gus Oberg at Albert Hammond Jr.'s home studio in upstate New York, with Julian Casablancas adding vocals along the way.

"Machu Picchu" opens on a springy, almost reggae guitar line, "Under Cover Of Darkness" is as perfect a Strokes single as anything on Is This It, and "Taken For A Fool" bounces with the old swagger. "Two Kinds Of Happiness" leans into 80s new wave, "Games" goes synthetic, and "Life Is Simple In The Moonlight," the one song kept from early sessions with Joe Chiccarelli, closes on a woozy high. Valensi and Hammond Jr. trade guitar lines as neatly as ever, and the whole thing wraps up in about 35 minutes, a classic Strokes length.

Rolling Stone gave it four stars and Time called it an exercise in rock precision. "Machu Picchu" later turned up on the FIFA 12 soundtrack, which means a whole generation learned it while losing at football.

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