First Impressions of Earth

"First Impressions of Earth", the highly awaited third album from The Strokes, is expected to come out to the market in January 2006. The Strokes are currently mixing 14 tracks with producer Andy Wallace in New York. The track list is:

"You Only Live Once",
"Juicebox",
"Heart in a Cage",
"Razor Blade",
"On the Other Side",
"Electricityscape",
"Killing Lies",
“Fear of Sleep",
"15 Minutes",
"Vision of Division",
"Red Light",
"Evening Sun",
"The Eyes Of The World",
"Ask Me Anything".

Frontman Julian Casablancas has given fans the inside story on the band's eagerly-awaited third album. Since 2003's 'Room On Fire', the band have ditched long-term producer Gordon Raphael in favour of David Khane, who has worked with [a][/a] and Sugar Ray. Now with the record nearing completion, Casablancas told the Alone, Together fanclub that Khane has taught the band to expand their canvas musically. He said:

"I think (Khane is) really cool. I think when you first meet him though, you can get caught in the façade. He has a very technical knowledge and he'll be very quick to casually spew it out. You might think he's just some serious slick hit-maker and that he doesn't care about music, but that's what he's all about: music. He cares about it so deeply that if you change a little part, and you're hurting the song, he'll cry. "He likes that atonal modern stuff, so he doesn't mind being weird and original, and that's what he prays for. "But then, sometimes something that just has a cool thing that's not popular, he'll want to transform it into something that could be more accessible, but all its coolness is erased. That's the main compromise that we have trouble with. I mean sure, I understand on every mindless level why it's like, pleasant, but no, it's not what I want to sing. It's the difference between lame and cool."

Casablancas continued: "Some things on the drums are going to be tricky, and Albert (Hammond Jnr, guitars) may have to mimic two rhythms at times, but it's all do-able. It's not like we have a lute and a harp and it's going to be there live. There's delay on it. I never liked it, but now it's sort of everywhere on the record. Not crazy eighties reverb, just enough to give a lot of the instruments space so it sounds fuller, bigger, and louder, and what I used to call 'More professional'."

The songs see the band moving into more experimental areas, something drummer Fab Moretti believes is down to the relaxed atmosphere created by building their own studio into their Midtown Manhattan Music Building rehearsal space.

He revealed: "To get where we are right now we couldn't have the pressure of hearing the fucking change fall in the bucket every time seconds passed (in the studio). So instead of using the money they (the label) were going to give us to make the third record at a studio, we just bought our equipment and now we have it permanently and we don't feel that guillotine falling. It really helps us to explore."

Album three marks a distinct shift from the serious and sometimes anxious attitude that has previously surrounded The Strokes camp, and credit has been given to producer David Kahne, who brought a different side out of the band.

"I feel like this was the perfect amount of time and it's gonna be the perfect set up for the record," Moretti said, "because we'll be able to go to all the places we want to go and not feel like we don't have the best possible record we could have on our hands."

First single “Juice box” already came out in the end of September and the album is now being mixed at Soundtrack Studios.

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