The Strokes

You can blame it on Blighty. When the Strokes fizzed out of New York City, largely unheralded but fuelled by a demo sent to Rough Trade, rock 'n' roll connoisseurs here in the UK instantly realized they'd found a band that could do for the '00s what Oasis had done for the '90s. The evidence was right there in Julian Casablancas' lycanthropic scream, in cooler-than-thou nods to Television and the Velvet Underground . . . in the sonic rocket fuel of "Last Nite" and the nonchalantly christened "Take It Or Leave It." Debut album Is This It (2001) clocked in at a no-nonsense, smash-n-grab 30-odd minutes, and ascent to the kick-ass A-list was instant.

There's more in the Strokes' mini-bar besides shots of sonic tequila, as you'll discover in Next Steps.

Whereas the first two Strokes albums made a virtue of brevity, hitting home with the speed and precision of a Floyd Mayweather combination, third album First Impressions of Earth (2006) hangs around for a little longer — which doesn't exactly herald anything prog length, just a higher track count and a few extra seconds to soak up the sidewinding bliss and galactic guitar work of a song like "Electricityscape" . . . which actually has loads of prog potential, and if you think you hear an echo of Brian May's trademark Queen axe tone on "Red Light" you're not mistaken. You prefer stripped-down Strokes? Try the scratchy home recording version of "The Way It Is".

Explore some of the Strokes' splinter projects, in Deep Cuts.

After touring to promote their third studio album, the band separated into its constituent parts — which could have been a bad thing, but only served to confirm the strength of the Strokes' individual talents. Guitarist Albert Hammond, Jr. (whose dad is the songsmith behind "To All the Girls I've Love Before") chipped in with a couple of long-players, the first of which betrays his easy-breezy West Coast roots and features "Hard to Live (In the City)"; bassist Nickolai Fraiture (as Nickel Eye) revealed a dab hand for folkish pop with 2009's The Time of the Assassins; drummer Fabrizio Moretti explored mellow grooves with Little Joy; and JC went synthy with Phrazes for the Young.

The epitome of Manhattan-made cool: that's the angle the Strokes played in 2001, flaunting bed-head hair, trendy clobber from vintage stores, and a stone-faced, detached ('Care? Us?') attitude for a scene sorely needing a shot of adrenaline from young rock 'n' roll saviours. Although they looked fantastic, these Big Apple bohemians were no mere poseurs, knocking out belters like "12:51", "Someday" and "Reptilia" with insouciant ease. Their style has evolved in the years since and, while the second half of the '00s brought on a hiatus (and various splinter projects), their sound remains instantly recognizable: a Lower East Side history lesson in post-punk and new wave tones, projected onto a pop sensibility that screams 'killer single' while it dices with the burnout perils of utterly justified hype. Like the band always said, take it or leave it.