Review Summary: ...wtf?
It's a surprise that anyone who was once a member of The Strokes would form a band as intrepidly inane as The Voidz. Generally known for their stiff and cumbersome attempts at coolness, The Strokes' safety has overtime come to define their underwhelming sound. When the boredom finally culminated in the middling trite to be found on
Comedown Machine, clearly a break was needed. Nobody expected then that the shaggy maned Julian Casablancas would form a solo band so frightfully left-field and devoid of concentration it would undo what he had strived to achieve throughout The Strokes. Lost between excess and actually writing a discernible tune, Casablancas' seems proud enough to simply make Caligula swoon. Suffice to say, that's not enough.
It's a shame that Casablancas has expressed such high hopes for
Tyranny, because not even a full listen will reveal how flawed and uncommercial a product it is. If you've experienced either lead single "Human Sadness" or the shocking Tonight Show performance of "Where No Eagles Fly", you have got the best sense of where Casablancas chooses to take his solo vehicle; that is to say, absolutely nowhere. Caught up in a quagmire of genres hobbled together at the expense of any discernible tune,
Tyranny escapes definition and is all the worse for it. It tries to rectify the matter by including sharp punk rockers such as "M.utually A.ssured D.estruction" and "Nintendo Blood". However, the overwrought epics dominate more apparently. Experimentations would be the kind word; mindless excess would be more suitable. Somewhere between glitch, synthpop, heavy metal, noise, and jazz sections, songs may occasionally settle upon a hook, but they're immediately destroyed the second they become apparent to the listener. It may unintentionally be a mockery of analysis in the vein of
Mullholland Drive, but it's clear Casablancas lacks the intelligent drive of David Lynch, ending up with a record that sounds more than anything just confused.
There's ironic fun to be found here, but that's hardly what any artist wants of output they're so deludedly proud of. Best do yourself a favour and avoid the ensuing confusion of listening to
Tyranny.
