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Album Review: Julian Casablancas + The Voidz - Tyranny

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"Tyranny is not the sound of a man in a happy place"

Further rattling the cage of those trapped by the spectre of Is This It, The Strokes frontman’s second extra-curricular album is swampy, robustly textured with awkward time signatures and caterwauling vocals. It’s deviant and dangerous, equally torn between genius and folly. Songs too often impose by dragging past the five-minute mark, but brevity would be a sheepish retreat to garage rock’s conventions. Human Sadness and the cumbersomely titled M.utually A.ssured D.estruction might as well be wearing T-shirts bearing Shia LaBeouf’s face because Tyranny is not the sound of a man in a happy place.