It would be very, very easy to hate The Strokes. Not only are they young, rich and unfeasibly good-looking, the five New Yorkers seem to have become world superstars on the back of a mere dozen songs and a debut album (Is This It) that was barely half an hour long. Time for a backlash then? Well, actually no - because as this remarkably assured follow-up proves, The Strokes really are nearly as good as all those doting press profiles suggest. The ingredients that worked so well first time around are all present and correct again - taut, wiry guitars, jaunty new-wave songs without an ounce of fat on them and beautifully deadpan vocal performances from the inimitable Julian Casablancas. Ok, so it's as derivative as they come, and the lyrics are basically arty nonsense - but who cares? It's also slick, effortlessly cool and, most importantly, gets more and more addictive with each listen. The Strokes will never be the future of rock'n'roll - but as long as they do as good a job as this of re-hashing the past, it's hard to see too many people complaining.
