Nickel Eye (Ryko)
The Strokes’ longer than expected hiatus has now forced the band’s bassist Nikolai Fraiture into solo album territory.
With simple, pared-back acoustic arrangements and poetic lyrics, he seems to be striving for Leonard Cohen’s elegiac beauty; his voice even has the same atonal timbre as Cohen’s.
But with tunes as flat as a pancake, the only time he gets close to this is when he actually covers Cohen’s Hey, That’s No Way To Say Goodbye at the LP’s close.
Sad but true. ALISON GRINTER
