In Transit: An Appreciation of Albert Hammond Jr.’s ‘Yours to Keep’

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The year I saw The Strokes live for the first time was also the year they began to burn out. Their First Impressions of Earth support tour stop was at Toronto’s Ricoh Coliseum in 2006 and it was literal moments before the band’s members shimmied away to work on solo or offshoot projects and, subsequently, themselves for the next few years. Perhaps it was exhaustion on their part—having toured and made records for years during the indie post-punk boom of the early Aughts—or maybe it was marked indifference. Whatever it was, their set that night didn’t seem, in retrospect, to capture who I initially thought this band to be. They ran through hits and new songs, even doing a cover of Lou Reed’s “Walk On The Wild Side” which, to this day, I remember the painful looking grimace of the man standing in front of me as he said, “kids in here have no idea who Lou Reed is.” I enjoyed the set, of course I would; this band was my everything. And they still are: Room on Fire, unlike their debut Is This It, was my gateway record and I will remain committed to it and them. A handful of months after this performance, however, frenetic Strokes guitarist Albert Hammond Jr. would be the first of the group to release a solo effort: the sweet, but often times lyrically dark, Yours to Keep. AHJ’s debut record does signal a much-needed shift in the band’s trajectory.

Yours to Keep celebrates its ten year anniversary this week, having been released on Rough Trade Records on Oct. 9, 2006. It would be released more widely in 2007 with the singer accompanying prominent Aughts bands, such as Bloc Party, on tour in support of it. Yours to Keep is a record that can easily slip past like water running through your fingers if you didn’t initially pay attention to it. Julian Casablancas’ solo work, as is the case with lead singers of any band, always seemed to be the focus, though Casablancas’ first release would come in 2009 with Phrazes for the Young. Fab Moretti would have the true sun-soaked project Little Joy and Nikolai Fraiture would have his cleverly named Nickel Eye. Even Nick Valensi started his own side project CRX this year. Whether or not you agree that they are good isn’t the point. These projects needed to happen because each needed creative fulfillment outside of an almost too immediately deemed legacy group. The Pitchfork review of Yours to Keep cheekily acquiesces to the record’s strengths, looking at its faults as it mostly not being a Strokes record. A closer listen and reading of Hammond Jr’s debut reveals a set of creative growing pains and lessons that he needed to take independent of his band.

“Cartoon Music for Superheroes” is the purest indie lullaby, which AHJ reportedly wanted, pursuing a sort of theme of innocence on the album. Even the album cover is pastoral with shadows of rabbits in the foreground. But Yours to Keep is a dark lullaby. It feels almost obvious to frame the record as something soothing to listen to on the road or in essence to lull the listener. AHJ has said in interviews that this record was written, in part, while The Strokes were on tour. The feeling of being en route is especially resonant on tracks like “In Transit”, “Hard to Live in the City”, “Blue Skies”, and “Scared.” With “Scared”—a track that I had, uncomfortably, put on more than one mixtape for former crushes—the record scratch at the beginning and AHJ’s familiar, steady guitar riff anchor it, making it sound like a journey. It feels like the kind of constant and consistent movement that one would sense while on a road. The road perhaps isn’t so literal but metaphorical: a deeper dive into figuring himself out as a musician and songwriter within and away from The Strokes; even more so figuring himself out as a human, whether or not the narrator of these songs is Hammond Jr. himself. 

The melodies on Yours to Keep are much softer than expected, even though a number of Is This It call up some tender images of beaches and turbulent oceanic waves. The Strokes are called a New York band but they pull West Coast influence musically, and even go back and forth from New York and L.A. quite often with guitarist Nick Valensi even residing there with his family. Yours to Keep straddles that coastal vibe as well with the remorseful sounding “Blue Skies.” Additionally, “Holiday” sounds like a new generation’s Beach Boys garage pop song with “Jamaica, ooh I’m gonna take ya”, though it is darkly transparent with the intro “wake up/months of change have fucked me up.” During later press tours for his follow-up records, AHJ would discuss his path to sobriety. His inches toward honesty, whether it’s with himself or an unknown character or even to his audience, are initially found on this record, which grounds it. The lyrics on “Everyone Gets A Star”, for example, “today, you’ve come now go away/I know it gets so confusing/Something it all seems to drag me down/ And when I’m getting closer/ So close, everything just falls apart” demonstrate this. That contrast of darker thoughts and words with tender musical accompaniment show a more profoundly individual relationship exploration.

The Strokes released the excellent Future Past Present EP earlier this year that, in the years since their reformation as a group (though they never officially disbanded or broke up at any point), is easily the purest Strokes effort we’ve seen since Room on Fire. Criticism levied against their other albums Angles and Comedown Machine hinge too often on their reliance on 80s influences or that tracks lack focus and are all over place. These criticisms often feel like loud groans that they aren’t the five-piece guitar driven garage band we want them to be, not who they are working toward figuring out to be. Good work should evolve; become a living, fluid art. If it remains stagnant, then it risks falling behind. Rock’s place in our time now is fragile but perhaps The Strokes have history and an acclaim behind them to propel them further along, as well as the space each member gave to himself to grow creatively. One can see in the ten years removed from AHJ’s debut record, the first of the group to go solo, that the seeds of difference the band needed to take were planted so they could get to a place where they could become comfortable with themselves again.

Sarah MacDonald is still a fan of The Strokes. Follow her on Twitter.