The Strokes’ seventh album, Reality Awaits, is praised as one of their strongest releases in years, combining the band’s concise, melodic rock with the stranger, more experimental qualities of Julian Casablancas’ side project, the Voidz. The reviewer argues that this approach gives Casablancas some of his most lively and engaging performances in recent memory, while keeping the songs playful, tuneful and recognisably Strokes-like.

Released six years after 2020’s The New Abnormal, the album follows a record that revisited the group’s early sound but did not signal a permanent return to it. Tracks including Going Shopping, Going to Babble On and The Fruits of Conquest are highlighted for their grooves, melody and renewed energy, although the closing song, Tyrants of the Mellow Moon, is criticised as shapeless and cumbersome. Overall, the review considers the album a successful fusion of mayhem and pop craft.