Blog: Song, by Toad

It's annoying, I'm sure, but I find it really hard not to compare this to this year's other solo release by the front man of an early-nineties arch indie hipster band, Julian Plenti. Alternatively, I suppose, you could compare it to the Strokes' last and best album, First Impressions of Earth. In either comparison Phrazes For the Young fares really rather badly, in my opinion. It comes across as a light, eighties synth-pop facsimile of the best Strokes stuff with all the bite removed. And it certainly lacks the invention of Plenti's inconsistent, but often very good, solo [...]

• Julian Casablancas - 4 Chords of the Apocalypse
• Julian Casablancas - Out of the Blue