Last Nite/When It Started

The first heart-breaking sign of a cop out from the Strokes camp. As good as ‘Last Nite’ is, this was already a double A side with ‘The Modern Age’, hastily repackaged here as an excuse to allow Francis Ford Coppola’s son to direct their first video. Even more worrying is the lame non-starter excuse for a new song that is ‘When it Started’ – a flatulent chug-a-long yawn that appears on the US edition of Is This It? because it isn’t really a very good time to be singing that New York City cops ain’t too smart. Just play the album loud and hope that the backlash doesn’t start here.