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Zero 7
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed albums.
First Impressions Of Earth
Generally favorable reviews
Based on 38 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 292 votes
Read user comments
Rate this album >
Album Info
Label: RCA
Release Date: 03 January 2006
Discs: 1 disc
Genre(s): Indie, Rock
Summary
The Strokes have abandoned longtime producer Gordon Raphael (well, for all but three tracks) in favor of David Kahne (Sugar Ray) for their third album.
Also By This Artist: Is This It? Room On Fire
Also On Metacritic
MUSIC: Albert Hammond, Jr.: Yours To Keep
Also On The Web: Official Artist Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Playlouder
Turns out what the world was waiting for really was those that saved guitars finally making a record that truly reaped the rewards of their efforts. Is this it? OH GOD YES!
Read Full Review >E! Online
Julian Casablancas continues to sing as if roused from a deep sleep, the rhythm section keeps the tunes as puckery tight as the band's trousers and guitarists Nick Valensi and Albert Hammond Jr. balance melodic strumming with some impressive shredding.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club)
Casablancas and company sound loose, and they've regained a lot of the coolest-dudes-in-New-York swagger that made them so initially exciting.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly
An ambitious, frequently thrilling make-or-break third outing. [13 Jan 2006, p.75]
Filter
A solidly good, if not great, effort from a solidly great, not just good, rock band. [#19, p.89]
Magnet
Lasting impressions: Unlike sophomore clunker Room On Fire, you'll still be listening to First Impressions in two years and probably digging it even more. [#71, p.113]
Alternative Press
Sound[s] like the work of a band once again coming into their own. [Feb 2006, p.128]
The New York Times
"First Impressions of Earth" is their most openly impassioned album. As they lower their emotional guard, they redouble their musical ingenuity, then crank up their attack. [2 Jan 2006]
Read Full Review >Drawer B
The Strokes match their innate catchiness with a new found intensity that makes First Impressions of Earth sound like a band hungry for blood.
Read Full Review >New Musical Express
Still, it remains a challenge to crack their ice-cool exterior, to really feel things as they feel - but does that matter? The Strokes are, and have always been, a band that looks great at arm's length - and consequently, 'First Impressions Of Earth' remains, in the best way, untouchable: the first - indeed, maybe the last - word in New York City cool.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times
"First Impressions of Earth" would be better at 40 minutes than it is at 50-plus, and the Strokes' vision still has a definite ceiling, but Julian Casablancas' songs and ever more congested-sounding voice fight mightily to claim a new creative range.
Blender
Earth is the sound of a band coming to that inevitable realization: five patrician perfectionists who've resolved to sound sloppy, even (or especially) at the risk of fucking up. [Jan/Feb 2006, p.98]
musicOMH.com
For the first six songs, the whole thing is as exhilarating as Is This It?, it's in a different way, undoubtedly, but there's the same giddy rush of excitement.
Read Full Review >Tiny Mix Tapes
There is indeed more good than bad. Unfortunately, there is also more bad than there should be.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone
Really, this could be the excessive, erratic second album Room On Fire wasn't; if you switched the order of the two albums, Room On Fire would undoubtedly get hailed as their return to form.
Read Full Review >Stylus Magazine
First Impressions of Earth is the first pretty good album of the year.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle
Though the Strokes' first two efforts clocked in at the low- to mid-30-minute range, First Impressions of Earth orbits 52, and definitely should've split the difference ("15 Minutes"). Impressive nonetheless.
Read Full Review >Spin
First Impressions may not be the best Strokes album, but damn if it doesn't feel like the last. [Jan 2006, p.88]
cokemachineglow
Unfortunately, First Impressions of Earth takes a steep drop in quality after “Ask Me Anything” and never finds its way again.
Read Full Review >Mojo
At the heart of this overgrown squall of a record, there's a sense that The Strokes feel they have something to prove. If only they'd been able to decide upon what that is with greater clarity. [Feb 2006, p.88]
Trouser Press
Unfortunately, attempts to abandon [their] formula offer little evidence that they can excel at anything else.
Read Full Review >ShakingThrough.net
It's difficult to listen to the album without coming away with the impression that it should really be two different records. Casablancas' disaffected monotone increasingly seems to belong on a different record from the assured sounds of a band slowly feeling its way out of its pigeonhole.
Read Full Review >Under The Radar
Those who love The Strokes will dig the obviously better musicianship.... Those in the hate camp will think the musicianship still sucks. [#12, p.93]
Q Magazine
If there is a sense that this is The Strokes' last chance to carve an enduring career for themselves, then it's a challenge they've decided to tackle without any reinvention of their trademark sound. [Feb 2006, p.96]
Prefix Magazine
From the band we never expected to evolve, there is enough sweeping ambition to have knocked us on our heels - if only the members had learned the art of discretion.
Read Full Review >Uncut
The ambition's hampered by Julian Casablancas' sad-sack singing. [Feb 2006, p.68]
The Guardian
When the songwriting falls flat, as on Electricityscape or Ize of the World, it sounds dispiritingly less like the Strokes than a mainstream rock band trying to jump on the Strokes' bandwagon, slightly after the event.
Read Full Review >Village Voice
First Impressions of Earth is the sound of the Strokes taking a formal, technical, and emotional leap forward, but leaving the tunes behind.
Read Full Review >All Music Guide
The Strokes indulge their every whim, and the results are their weakest album yet.
Read Full Review >Paste Magazine
The Strokes don't have much of their own to say here. [Dec 2005, p.106]
Billboard
Too frequently on the band's third album, the fun gets lost in difficult song structures and chord changes that deliver less than we have come to expect. [14 Jan 2006]
Dot Music
Leaping from the speakers in a fury of jarring axe steel, clocking rhythmic beats and clinical vocal swagger, ultimately this LP gives itself - at some 60 minutes length - an awful lot of time to say very little.
Read Full Review >Drowned In Sound
Cast away the politics and the last twenty minutes and you'll still be left with two or three top tunes to add to your daily playlists, but it was never going to be ground-breaking or innovative.
Read Full Review >Pitchfork
But if the group has grown deadlier and more dynamic in their five years together, singer Julian Casablancas still struggles as a lyricist.
Read Full Review >PopMatters
While it might be easy to point to the industry guy behind the boards, the album speaks for itself, and the Strokes managed to write a flop all by themselves.
Read Full Review >Slant Magazine
First Impressions introduces some subtle new colors to the band's musical palette... but the pervasive sense of inert boredom, which has been noted as a strength in the past, is difficult to shake.
Read Full Review >Delusions of Adequacy
The album would be yet another trademark Strokes outing if not for its glaring inconsistency in the later tracks.
Read Full Review >Lost At Sea
The third time is not the charm, at least in the case of this album, which is polished to the point of being ultimately less appealing and without any angles from which to approach.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this album is 8.0 (out of 10) based on 292 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Ben F gave it a7:
It is different than their previous two albums but still good. "You live only once" is pretty much my favorite track from this album. The rest are decent but not great.
Burwell W. gave it a7:
While the first two albums were damn near perfect (if not the second then certainly the first with room on fire trailing close by) first impressions of earth slightly misses its mark. The first two albums were filled with nostalgia entangled within the lyrics and the melodies. This is lost. Hopefully with a new album they can get their mojo back.
Jodan gave it a10:
Awesome! Every song is amazing. The strokes kick A**!!!
Adam P. gave it a4:
A poor album and a shame after enjoying this is it and room on fire. A shambles.
Daniel B. gave it a7:
Good for most of the album but nothing more than solid and how the hell are the strokes indie rock?
Frankie M. gave it a9:
I wasnt going to buy this album due to mixed reviews but then i heard you only live once and i thought why not buy it and now im so happy i did. my faviourite tracks are juicebox,vision of division, ize of the world and you only live once. also impressed by the guitar work the best ive heard from the strokes
R R gave it a9:
Great, great album. I lost interest in the Strokes after their first, which I'd played to death. Then saw them live and was blown away - Pearl Jam aside, this is the tightest rock band in the world right now. Most of the songs they played I hadn't heard before, and I was thrilled by all of them. Guess what? They're on this record. A song or two could have been dropped; aside from that negligible fact, Impressions stands as one hell of an accomplished album. Can't get enough of it. And only Julian Casablancas can rip off Barry Manilow (in Razor Blade) and still sound cool. Great job.
