The Strokes - "Under Cover of Darkness"

Last night folks. Last night was it. One of the most important musical nights of the year. Perhaps of the last 5 years. No, it wasn't Marcus Mumford revealing he's now so rustic that his waistcoat has fused to his back and built a small stone cottage populated by Leprechauns smoking cork pipes. No. It was the premier of the first new material from The Strokes since 2006. I, like a lot of music fans across the UK, was hunched expectantly by my radio at 7:30, listening reverently to the mighty Zane Lowe and diverting my attention from the England match. Even though I'm not really old enough to have experienced The Strokes the first time, having become a fan since then and an advocate of them as the most important band of the 21st century, I was more than a tad excited.

The weight of expectation was massive. The relative disappointments of their second and third albums still hadn't shaken off the sublime quality of Is This It?, and deep down I, and I imagine everyone else, was desperately WANTING this new song to be brilliant. So much.

And as far as I'm concerned, it is.

"Under Cover of Darkness" is a flipping fantastic song. The opening riff is so bouncy, sunny and carefree; I fell in love with it instantly. Albert Hammond Jr's guitars have for too long been absent. It's immediately obvious that The Strokes aren't trying to abandon their classic sound, and it would be criminal for them to do so. The opening guitar parts are so recognisably Strokes-y, they're the perfect homecoming announcement. Julian's vocals sound a bit different than before, even from his 2009 solo album Phrazes for the Young; but it's still got the shambolic, slapdash, almost drunken drawl that we all fell in love with. He sings a chorus which is just sensational. Really. I've listened to it time and time again since yesterday thinking "is this chorus really as good as I think it is?" Yes. Yes it is. It might seem at a cursory listen that there's not really that much to it. But it's brilliantly understated. It's so melodic, so singalongable (yes, that is a word)I can just imagine Julian and Albert singing into the same mike with this, John-and-Paul style. I immediately started thinking about singing it in a massive sunny field with thousands of other people. So I better get a chance to see them this year...

I love this track. It's exactly what I wanted from The Strokes. How it will be received commercially and critically remains to be seen. Immediate fan reaction is pretty mixed. The face of guitar may have changed a lot since 2006, as I mention in a previous post about The Strokes. And I've been wondering if they've left it too long, as if they're part of a by gone age. But when the tunes are as brilliant as this, all my worries melt away.

So more of the same please boys. I want a mammoth indie rock band a bit more playful than Arcade Fire to be ruling the roost this year.

Click here to go to their website and download the track for free. Download ends tomorrow evening.