On
Melodies on Hiatus
,
Albert Hammond, Jr.
builds on
Francis Trouble
's soul-baring mood by finding some new wrinkles on his eloquent guitar pop -- and maybe some gray hairs, too. Fatherhood and the COVID-19 global pandemic spurred him to think about the past in new ways, and it's a viewpoint that's well-suited to the world-weary undercurrents of the music he's made since the early 2000s. At first, his meditations on days gone by are breezy: Buoyed by a sprightly guitar riff, "Old Man"'s look at
Hammond
's father from a different perspective ("don't you know the tables turn on you when you get old?") is a cheeky highlight, while the line he draws between then and now for an old flame on "Darlin'" is as firm as the melody is catchy. As the album unfolds, however,
lets the cracks in the facade show. "Dead Air" fights against ennui and meaninglessness over chiming and choppy guitars; "False Alarm" starts out as naively chugging, '90s-indebted pop, but as
sings about "a loneliness inside," it morphs into a searching piano ballad. When
echoes his work with
the Strokes
, it reads like additional commentary on the past's inextricable bonds. "Thoughtful Distress," which features
Arctic Monkeys
'
Matt Helders
and
Billy Idol
guitarist
Steve Stevens
, feels like a more personal update of the dark, new wavey drama of his other band, as does "Caught by Night," though that song's serpentine guitar is accompanied by some decidedly non-
Strokes
-sounding hand drums. Indeed, the album's greatest strength is that while it may be rooted in the past, it's not stuck there. With
Momentary Masters
seemed to favor more concise releases, but
is a generous 19 tracks long. It's also bookended by a pair of songs that sound little like anything he's done before. The opening track, "100-99," honors
's lifelong love of hip-hop by seamlessly fusing his brooding reflections with a slinky beat and
GoldLink
's bars, but the album goes much farther afield with "Alright Tomorrow." A yacht rock-meets-disco odyssey with
Rainsford
on lead vocals, it's an uplifting but somewhat bewildering finale.
also collaborated with poet
Simon Wilcox
on the album's lyrics, and she helps him distill complicated feelings into lines as graceful as "Libertude"'s declaration of love ("I needed you to be the edge I held onto") and as relatable as "818"'s frustration over a friend who's moved on to a new crowd ("why do I have to see them to see you?"). Though
' experiments sacrifice some of the single-minded purpose of
's previous albums, it delivers a bumper crop of songs that embrace the complexities of life and music with a sense of adventure. ~ Heather Phares