CD Review: Albert Hammond Jr.'s '¿Como Te Llama?'

A SOLO ALBUM can be a chance for a musician to break free of the chains imposed by bandmates and pursue his own musical impulses. For Strokes guitarist Albert Hammond Jr., who seems to genuinely like the music his band releases, the experience might be more akin to removing a skintight pair of hipster jeans and slipping into a looser, less restrictive garment.

Fear not, it may be summery but "¿Cómo Te Llama?" is hardly a caftan album. Hammond hasn't outgrown The Strokes' trademark sound, and several songs here would have fit in just fine on an album by the band — if singer Julian Casablancas was a tad less domineering. In fact, on the CD's "In My Room" only Hammond's more emotive (if still distorted) vocals and comparatively sincere lyrics differentiate the track from the Strokes' output.

Still, Hammond does take the opportunity to stretch out a bit.

His favored songwriting strategy seems to be juxtaposing two disparate song components. Sometimes this manifests as the good old "quiet-loud" dynamic popularized by The Pixies and Nirvana, but Hammond has a few more unique formulations as well. "Lisa" shifts from an almost twee combination of scratchy drum machine and plinky keyboard into an epic rock chorus worthy of mid-period Modest Mouse. "Borrowed Time" transitions from light reggae to nonsense-syllable-laden bubblegum and back again repeatedly. This particular combination might not seem appealing once the season changes, but for a July 8 release it works well enough.

Hammond's lyrics, when they're discernable, can be either romantic or baffling non sequiturs. The jaunty "Miss Myrtle" boasts the incomprehensible "Smile and decide / Some things you hide / But I can't forget them all / I'm five feet 10 inches tall." Well, me too, but I hadn't realized that had anything to do with my memory. (To Hammond's credit he acknowledges "I'm just like you / Easily confused" in the same song.)

"¿Cómo Te Llama?" does have flaws, starting with the ungrammatical Spanish in the title. The burbling seven-minute instrumental "Spooky Couch" is inoffensive but gratuitous, as is the string quartet that appears around the sixth minute of "Spooky Couch" and on a few other tracks. And the electronics-heavy "Victory in Monterey" quickly descends into pedestrian dance-rock.

Strokes fans who love the band primarily for their hip New York mystique might be disappointed, but the band's lackluster third album pretty much killed that mystique anyway. Hammond's decision to take it breezy on "¿Cómo te Llama?" seems a lot more natural and he manages to be weirdly charming while maintaining a bit of cool.

» Stream the whole album here.

Written by Express contributor Meg Zamula
Photo by Valerie Jodoin-Keaton