Different Strokes?

Is this it? Seriously? It's taken The Strokes five years to release a new single that's almost identical to their first single? Should we even be surprised? Were The Strokes really ever all that?

To be fair, this is a band that came along when popular music was in a particularly dreary place, back in the weenie-pulling heyday of Limp Bizkit, boy bands, nu rock and pop punk. Given the suicidally depressing strip-mall gestalt of blink-182 or the mono-browed jock-stalt of Staind and its constipated ilk, who could blame us for losing our shit over five hot dudes from New York who sounded like Television?

But that was 10 years ago, and on the evidence of new single Under Cover of Darkness" -- what a crappy title, by the way -- The Strokes still sound like Television. More than ever, in fact, just not nearly as interesting. Which simply doesn't cut it after the tense build-up that followed their signing off in 2006 with "You Only Live Once." This was after three albums of diminishing returns, boring live appearances, Hollywood girlfriends, mediocre solo efforts, Nikolai Fraiture's new hair and the growing sense that The Strokes really were -- as early critics grumped -- children of privilege. Which chafed a little when they persisted in never delivering the knockout punch after such a great, three-minute debut. And let's be frank; dropping "New York City Cops" from Is This It after 9/11 was a wiener move. Final score? The Strokes have still failed to improve on the giddy revelation of "Last Nite." Meaning they aren't doing their job properly.

Their new album, Angles, comes out on March 21. A week earlier, an authentically destitute group of filthy Texan urchins called High Tension Wires release their first album since 2007's Midnight Cashier. You want a whip-smart, retro-inspired gas? Expect Welcome New Machine to take a big 'ol dump from a great height on the NY glamour boys.