“Is This It เป็นอัลบั้มเปิดตัววงร็อคจากนิวยอร์คที่ชื่อว่า The Strokes ที่้ประสบความสำเร็จเป็นอย่างสูงทั้งในแง่ยอดขายและเสียงวิจารณ์ ซึ่งเป็นไปตามความตั้งใจของวงที่ตั้งใจให้อัลบั้มนี้ฟังเท่ห์ๆ ประสบความสำเร็จสูง แต่ฟังดูไม่ตลาด ซึ่งเปรียบเทียบได้กับที่ Oasis เคยประสบความสำเร็จในยุค ’90 เพลงในอัลบั้มเต็มไปด้วยสไตล์ที่หยิบยืมจากคนโน้นนิดคนนี้หน่อย แล้วพัฒนาเป็นสไตล์ของตัวเอง เอกลักษณ์ของวงนี้อยู่ที่ลูกเล่นของกีร์ต้าสองตัวที่มีโทนเสียงต่างกัน เพราะเป็น Fender Stratocaster และ Epiphone Semi-hollow แต่เล่นประสานกันได้อย่างลงตัว ฟังเพลงแล้วรู้สึกว่าง่ายๆ เท่ห์ ติดหูง่าย แต่ไม่ตลาด เป็นไปตามความตั้งใจของวงจริงๆ เก่งมากครับ ”

 

1. Is This It
2. The Modern Age
3. Soma
4. Barely Legal
5. Someday
6. Alone, Together
7. Last Nite
8. Hard To Explain
9. New York City Cops
10. Trying Your Luck
11. Take It Or Leave It

NME
It's the best kind of New York story. One which mixes impossible glamour with brief excursions to the wild side. Which starts in a basement, and ends in huge acclaim. Which features good-looking participants in a potentially dirty business. A story too good to be true to be the real thing, surely? Like the title seems to ask - is this really it? Oh, it is. If 'it' is 11 songs and 37 minutes of concise and elegant rock music by five young men. If 'it' is a truly great statement of intent, one of the all-too-infrequent calls to arms that guitar music can provide, one of the best and most characterful debut albums of the last 20 years. If 'it' is touching, soulful, funny, tuneful and well-written songs played by people in great clothing, then yes, it is. It is 'it'.

Simply put, The Strokes have every quality rock'n'roll requires from its finest exponents and 'Is This It' is where they come together. Some are obvious: the drawling narratives of singer Julian Casablancas, the clanging of Albert Hammond Jr and Nick Valensi's guitars, the uncomplicated recording, bassist Nikolai Fraiture and drummer Fabrizio Moretti joyfully getting on with the business of making music. More than that, though (and like, say, 'Definitely Maybe' by Oasis before it), 'Is This It' is a document of a group seizing a moment and making it entirely their own. Like any indispensable invention, you're forced to wonder how you got by without it. This album is filled with examples of The Strokes' indispensability. That these songs for the most part represent material that the band have played since their inception tells you a lot about its quality: the band were inspired from the beginning, and that spontaneity has been captured. It's a mood that is the backbone to the songs, too - they represent an account of life (their lives, anyone's lives) as hectic and full of incident as their own career. If there's a theme, then it's of inarticulacy ("I say the right thing/But act the wrong way", in 'Hard To Explain', is one lyric that sets the tone), but the songs themselves are perfectly articulate. They're in the right time, in the right place, and they provide as many epiphanies as they're trying to describe.

There's nothing unnecessary here. 'Is This It' is an album by a band that knows its strengths, knows its collective mind. It doesn't sound like one songwriter and some other donkeys. The highest compliment you can pay this record is that it sounds like The Strokes, sounds as good as that whole concept. It's a New York story, a Los Angeles story, a London story. Anyone and everyone's story. 10/10