# The Strokes Push Past Abnormal on Wildly Engaging, AutoTuned Reality Awaits: Review

- URL: https://talkfuse.com/story/the-strokes-push-past-abnormal-on-wildly-engaging-autotuned-reality-awaits-review/
- Published: 2026-07-23T18:00:20+00:00
- Updated: 2026-07-23T22:21:05+00:00
- Original publisher: Consequence
- Original article: https://consequence.net/2026/07/the-strokes-reality-awaits-album-review/
- Topics: Music

## Key points

- Reality Awaits extends The Strokes’ adventurous recent phase.
- AutoTune and abrupt shifts define its unpredictable sound.
- The review rates the album B+.

## Summary

The Strokes’ Reality Awaits is presented as a deliberately strange, engaging follow-up to 2020’s The New Abnormal, confirming that the band’s recent creative revival has become a sustained direction rather than a one-off. The review argues that the album moves well beyond the immediate, guitar-led accessibility of earlier Strokes records, embracing unpredictability, unusual vocal processing and abrupt stylistic changes.

Opening tracks “Psycho Shit” and “Dine N’Dash” contain the album’s most extreme moments, including AutoTuned vocals from Julian Casablancas, spoken-word passages and dramatic shifts in mood. Elsewhere, songs such as “Lonely in the Future”, “The Fruits of Conquest” and “Liar’s Remorse” mix danceable grooves, psychedelic details and unexpected endings; the review awards the album a B+.

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Summarised by TalkFuse (https://talkfuse.com/). Quote the original publisher for the reporting and link this page for the summary and discussion.