Albert Hammond Jr has shed light on why The Strokes postponed the release of their forthcoming album.
In April, the New York indie favourites unveiled their latest single, Going Shopping, and announced that Reality Awaits, their seventh studio album, would arrive on June 26.
Nevertheless, with only seven days remaining before the due date, the band informed fans that the release would be pushed back to July 24, and guitarist Albert Hammond Jr. took to X to outline the reasons.
According to NME, in a now-deleted reply to a fan, he explained that the aim was for the streaming release to align with the vinyl drop.
He also remarked that the material on the record sounds like it was created by a “weird, young band.”
Reality Awaits follows 2020’s The New Abnormal, though anticipation around new music had been building since 2022, when producer Rick Rubin mentioned recording sessions in Costa Rica.
Hammond Jr. told NME at the time: “I think he was just excited about where we recorded.”
“But I don’t know what to say about it—I don’t have any information on it. It’s not like it’s happening and I’m hiding something. We went and did a bunch of recording. It could come out a year or two years from now—it’s an unknown timeframe when it’ll be finished, but, yes, we are working on another record.”
He later confirmed that the band had completed a substantial amount of recording, while frontman Julian Casablancas acknowledged ongoing work but indicated that the project was not near release at that moment.
He stated that the group had finished “a bunch of recording” but admitted he had no idea when the project would be finished, emphasizing that it could take “a year or two years” before anything materialised.
Julian later responded to the speculation on Instagram, confirming that the band were indeed collaborating again but warning fans that new material was still far from being released.
Reality Awaits tracklist:
1. Psycho S***
2. Dine N Dash
3. Lonely In The Future
4. Falling Out Of Love
5. Going To Babble On
6. Going Shopping
7. Liars Remorse
8. The Fruits Of Conquest
9. Pros And Cons
