The Strokes have a new album coming, and they’ve announced it the way only they could. A teaser trailer dropped on the band’s social media Monday with four words and a tagline: ‘Reality Awaits’. “In the flesh, it’s even sexier.” No release date, no tracklist, no overthinking it.
The announcement lands as the band has been warming up with small club dates in San Francisco, playing the Warfield on April 4 and Bill Graham Civic Auditorium on April 6, ahead of back-to-back Coachella appearances on April 11 and April 18. Festival dates at Outside Lands and Bonnaroo are also on the books. The Strokes are clearly building toward something, and the live shows are part of the process.
‘Reality Awaits’ will be the follow-up to 2020’s ‘The New Abnormal’, making it the band’s first studio album in six years. That gap hasn’t cooled anything. The club shows have confirmed the band is locked in, and the festival circuit is about to find out exactly where they are right now.
There’s more to come. For now, the tease is doing exactly what it’s supposed to do.