When it comes to generic New York garage punk, The Strokes are where it's at. Starting out in 2001 with a phenomenally successful debut album that sold millions, they were supposedly poised to rewrite the rulebook and return rock and roll to its rightful place as the King of Music. Unfortunately, it didn't quite work out quite so well. While the second album was also a hit, it mainly seemed to appeal to a select group, college students with stupid haircuts and tight pants, music journalists, and scenesters. Even worse, they hadn't changed the world, Nelly still ruled the charts, and upstarts from across the Atlantic were still foolishly challenging, trying to make Glasgow the centre of trendy post-punk, not New York.

"First Impressions Of Earth" is the first album that The Strokes have made since being freed from the unrealistic expectations heaped upon them, and it's allowed them to really branch out and explore some new territory. Previously, the band followed a very conservative post-punk path, not greatly expanding upon the sound laid down by their predecessors like The Velvet Underground. This time around though, the band make some tentative steps into experimentalism, concentrating less on tightly wound three minute pop songs, and incorporating glam, dub, and good old-fashioned alt-rock into their sound.

The familiar is still here though, and there's no question who is playing when you hear Julian Casablancas tear through You Only Live Once, the opening track from the album. It's so tight that it sounds like it's been assembled by robots, albeit robots with hot guitar skills and a burning desire to rock. Ize Of The World is another track that proves that the devastating attack of the last two albums was no fluke, and that the Casablancas can still write a decent tune.

But it's not these songs which are the most interesting thing here. After all, if you want to listen to what the band sounded like on "Is This It", then go and listen to that album. What's interesting here is what happens when the band steps outside the little niche that they've carved for themselves. I'd like to say that they're equally adept, whether they're playing a smoky ballad or dabbling with electronica, but to be honest, the much-vaunted attempts at variation are a bit of a mixed bag. In some places, like on Juicebox, everything comes together spectacularly, but in other places, like the messy ballad 15 Minutes, it all goes horribly wrong.

The reason that many of these songs don't fire is mostly down to Casablancas' complete ineptitude when it comes to writing lyrics. while you're singing songs about casual sex with groupies, backed up by guitars so loud that you can barely hear the words, clumsy lines aren't so much of a problem. When you're putting the lyrics front and centre though, it does become a problem, and this is a major thing that is holding the album back. Casablancas might be a good vocalist, but he's a lousy lyricist, and he'd be advised to come up with something better than " Don't be a coconut/God is trying to talk to you" next time around.

Overall, this isn't a bad effort, but it's hardly a stellar one either. Credit must go to the band, since they've already outlasted most of their contemporaries, and this sort of experimentation is what they need to grow, to mature, and to stay interesting. They've just merely delayed the second-album bump to their third album.