The first line on the 2018 Arctic Monkeys album Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino is: “I just wanted to be one of The Strokes.” Now it’s finally happened, kind of – not to Alex Turner but to Arctic Monkeys drummer Matt Helders. He provides reliable stick work on Thoughtful Distress, a noisy standout among many on the fifth solo album by Strokes guitarist Albert Hammond Jr.
To be fair, most people fantasised about being in The Strokes at the start of the 2000s, when the New York quintet’s debut album, simultaneously acknowledging and dismissing the vast hype by being named Is This It, went double platinum in the UK and launched an armada of skinny retro rock bands. They gave the title to, and were the main subjects of, the book and documentary film Meet Me in the Bathroom, which Hammond Jr says he hasn’t watched, apparently displeased at the implication his best years are long behind him.
