The Strokes
“Under Cover of Darkness”

I was going to write a piece on this song, but I’ve decided to write about the other song. I figure I’ll like warm up the writing muscle by jotting down a few thoughts about this song, though.

“Under Cover of Darkness” is a well-crafted song. The doubled lead line at the beginning, the campy lead figure doubled by the bass, and the palm-muted click clack of the rhythm are all pleasure-center tinglers. They’re tropes I expect from the Strokes, and they didn’t disappoint me. It sounds a little bit more glam than the Strokes 1.0, but it’s significantly more decocted than First Impressions of Earth-era Strokes.

The bridge is one of those kind of mystical experiences, like taking a big bong rip of salvia, that makes a lot more sense in hindsight than at the very time. It seemed a little underwhelming, at first. But the song really needs the stretched out, weary Casablancas treatment in order to gain its target, which is to talk about rock music’s enervation at the hands of time and discourse. Without Casablanca’s wailing “I’ll wait for you,” the song would lack the push-pull emotionalism of, say, a “Barely Legal.” So instead of trawling for creepy sexual pleasures, the Strokes here are at odds with music in general, making rock music, and its relation with the world. (I was tempted to say “outside world…”) The dynamic is here present of wanting your demise and superseding either the demise or its want. The new thing is that it’s got the baked-in patina of experience. I mean real experience and not the kind that’s given by a cool vocal filter.

I’ve been out around this town.
And everybody’s been singing the same song for ten years.

That seems pretty real. But I don’t know; I don’t really want to get too much into a close reading of the lyrics. There’s not a lot there, there’s never been a lot there, and that’s fine. You don’t go to the _____ for its ______. Dance with the Loud Reed who brought you. You know.

Where does “Under Cover of Darkness” go a bit wrong? Well, I’ve been listening to First Impressions and Is This It? this morning, and I’m not really interested in comparing the two. There is a kind of quidity or whatness to the Strokes’s music, though. “Under Cover of Darkness” displays a thick version of reality, which I don’t really appreciate. It’s not even that it has a lot of junk tossed in, like in First…, but rather it’s just aiming to make a world that’s a bit too fleshed out. That bass line that doubles the lead is cool at the beginning, but then throughout the song it’s a little too obtuse. It doesn’t have the bounce of Is This It?-era playing. The drumming, never a strong point of the band, is déclassé bashing. The falsetto vocal on the chorus distracts me. Why is it there? It’s not a harmony, and it’s doesn’t fit into the structure or anything. Weird. The whistling/chirping before the solo is also, like, a bit of cold water thrown onto the mix.

The guitar work is excellent, though. Again, I’m a sucker for the doubling stuff—the lead and the little rumbling lyrical excursions. Aside from the whistley thing, the solo is really nice. It has some classic Hammond, Jr. stuff—two note chords in the middle to break it up, leading into an unexpected upward shift. It’s got a Milton Berle Perfect length thing going on. Not bad at all.

Overall, “Under Cover of Darkness” is like a very solid lead single, but I’ll admit I was hoping for perfection, since the Strokes are one of my very favorite bands.