Album Review: Like All Before You by The Voidz

The Strokes man’s third album under The Voidz name has moments of sheer genius but is plagued by frustrating inconsistencies Julian Casablancas – the man, the myth, the meme master – returns with his third Voidz album, after a six year wait (and a relatively brisk four years since the last The Strokes album). He's responsible for at least one, and possibly two, of the greatest albums ever made – and certainly the most influential. This is the third album he's produced under the Voidz moniker, and it's been clear for some time that he cares more for his Voidz work than he does for The Strokes.

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"Give the humans what they want / Some music for them to blow their brains out to" I know next to nothing about Julian Casablancas as a person, but if his music is anything to go by, he isn't nearly as interesting as he believes himself to be. The Strokes' sense of coolness was that of a cardboard cutout of Lou Reed, posed, flat and rigid. Right to the point, I find the cultivated sense of urban ennui in his music bland at best, and revolting at worst.

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There is experimentation for its own sake, and there is unforced invention delivered with chilled ease. The Voidz fall into the second category. The instinct for generating new ideas and managing the execution places the group in a position of worthy ongoing study, especially when the largely LA-based collective keeps demonstrating a knack for handling crisp ideas.

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"Give the humans what they want / Some music for them to blow their brains out to," sings Julian Casablancas on the meditative pianos of 'Like All Before You''s centrepiece 'Spectral Analysis': a total red herring (albeit a rather lovely one) amongst an album that sounds like an '80s video game version of the future, all robotic, vocoder-drenched vocals and warped genre-flitting. In his work with The Voidz (and, far more frustratingly, during The Strokes' often barely-audible festival shows), Casablancas has shown he has little time for delivering the former sentiment: what the humans want is what he used to give them, but JC doesn't really give a shit about any of that. As for the second half, while The Voidz' third album is unlikely to cause anyone to reach for the revolver, there is an overriding sense of anxiety and paranoia to the palette they create that's the opposite of a straightforward listen.

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