Stroke(s) of genius? Or just surprisingly good?

I’ve never considered Julian Casablancas the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree. I mean, honestly, how many lyrics do you actually remember from Is This It? “Last night… she said…” and that’s about it. But this album gets a lot better when you realize the guy who sounds like he’s singing through a fog machine is actually saying things - taking jabs at war, AI, conformity, self-loathing, and whatever’s left of the modern soul. So do yourself a favor and Google the lyrics on this one, at least on your first listen. Or buy the LP and read the insert. It’s worth the effort.

”Psycho Shit” starts off the album not with a bang but literally a whimper, with a spooky guitar and organ intro that raises hackles like the soundtrack to a Vincent Price horror flick. That leads into a mewling vocal from Casablancas. But listen carefully and it’s an anti-war song - “we learned to harvest bombs from lead, we learn to die to learn to live.” Typically obtuse, the song mixes in a few lines about a toxic love affair, but then there’s a devastating denunciation of drone warfare: “You kill your prey from your nest / from behind a desk, psycho shit/ you have no honor or no balls.”

”Dine N Dash” picks up the tempo, a motorik one-string guitar leading us into one of several songs sounding quite a bit like the early Strokes. “We could never afford it, we would dine ‘n’ dash, I was always the last one out” sounds like the youthful misadventures of broke adolescents. But then, over an ominous organ tone, we hear military-speak, and Casablancas imagines himself committing horrible, inhuman violence. “But I have sworn a life of peace,” he asks, “how can I reconcile this beast?”

”Lonely In The Future,” again sounding an awful lot like the early Strokes, name drops commentator Chris Hedges and online rock critic Anthony Fantano, noting that while Casablancas “did that while I was a kid,” the Hedges and Fantanos of the world “would not recognize art in any age.””Falling Out of Love” - autotune and falsetto in full effect - weaves love poetry over a pretty ballad, not a great Strokes song but sounding better now in context (at least for me.) The autotune’s there but not overwhelming, the falsetto’s using sparingly, for effect. You get used to both. And wasn’t there autotune on Is This It?

”Going to Babble On” strikes a tone very much like mid-period R.E.M., obliquely commenting on conformity (and the struggle to escape it) over a jangly melody that’s as pretty as anything the Strokes have done. The whimsical, even humorous “Going Shopping” finds the Strokes sounding perfectly happy being an indie-pop band, instead of running away from it. You think the Strokes don’t have a sense of humor? How about “I wanna be a 7-foot zombie/ the pay is low but I gotta do something.” Or, even better, “I moved away to the country, I had to change my way / But I kinda miss you now/ stockbrokers flyin’ out the window, I kinda miss that sound.”

”Liar’s Remorse” - with a chorus that reads like a page from Michael Stipe’s diary - might be about unrequited love, but it includes a dig at Artificial Intelligence, and “The Fruits of Conquest” finds the band in full R&B mode, with a sensual groove and a sexy guitar lick. This isn’t dance music; the boys have something way more intimate in mind.

”Tyrants of the Mellow Moon” closes things out with an angsty love song filled with remorse and regret, but read between the lines and it could easily be a letter to the band’s patient and enduring fans. “That's all I got, I let this song play out / But at the end, must let all songs die / So we watch for the Mellow Moon / But nobody cared as much as you.”The Strokes were easy to ignore for a while there, and honestly, most of us did. But Reality Awaits is a reminder that they can still make a record that sounds both relevant and unexpectedly alive, which is a trick a lot of their descendants have spent years trying to steal. I went in skeptical, stayed for the jokes, and came out admitting the obvious: they got me.

The band - drummer Patrick Keeler, bassist Dominic Davis, and keyboardist Bobby Emmett - tries to keep up, but only Emmet’s Hammond organ - a magnificent beast in its own right - manages to make itself felt. Davis’ bass disappears in the mix and Keeler’s drums lack the Bonham-esque clobber to provide a sufficient offset to the guitar. It’s all high frequencies without enough bottom, and over the course of 13 tracks, it’s as liable to give you a headache as induce euphoria. (It might do both.)

But hey, this is Jack White’s show and he puts on a doozy, with enough heavy riffing to satisfy metal fiends and more than enough inspired noodling to appease Deadheads. Even when he loses the thread (and any semblance of melody,) those insane paroxysms of guitar hold your attention.

This isn’t Jack White’s best - no one’s going to be playing these songs at sports arenas in 30 years, folks - but it’s a damn good album, and even better if you love the blues. Mostly, it’s proof (as if we needed any) that Rock is not dead, just waiting for the right maniac to come along and remind us what it can be.

MADONNA - Confessions II (Warner)
Madonna is in her sixties - barely middle-aged compared the Dylan, Jagger or Diana Ross - yet it seems like she’s been around forever. And coming out of an artistic and commercial nadir - I won’t recap her last two decades, you can read Pitchfork for that - Confessions II snuck up on me; like picking up the latest Stephen King novel, expectations were… low. Plus, I’m a fat old geezer who hasn’t gone out dancing since the Clinton Administration. Dance music ain’t my thing. But holy crap, I love this album. You should give it a listen. Really.

This isn’t Madonna trying to attract new fans by hopping on a bandwagon or stay relevant by aping the latest trends in EDM. It’s a Madonna album. The woman may have the thinnest voice in pop music, but as a female singer who doesn’t play music, she remains an icon - the spiritual daughter of Cher and Tina Turner, grandmother of Adele and Gaga, a throwback to a time before Nickelodeon and Disney began mass-producing our pop stars. Confessions II lets Madonna be Madonna, even when she’s sharing the spotlight some of the hottest dance-pop stars on the planet.

These songs always find a groove - sometimes, as on standout track “Danceteria,” with a “get up a dance” imperative - but often Madonna just gives us smooth, silky and, it goes without saying, sexy. She still whispers in that voice that gives teenage boys boners and makes the rest of us listen up. Instead of being forced to work with a committee of songwriters - as is the vogue in modern pop - most of the album was written by Madonna and producer Stuart Price, her collaborator on Confessions On A Dance Floor 20 years ago. Confessions II denotes this as a sequel.

Together, and with a bevy of guest stars, Price and Madonna pay homage to varying styles of house music infused with Madonna’s unique personality: She trades hushed secrets with Sabrina Carpenter on “Bring Your Love” and injects a spicy Latin feel with Colombian rapper Feid on “Read My Lips.” Dutch DJ Martin Garix, Belgian hip hop star Stromae, and Madonna’s daughter Lola Leon add youthful energy along with EDM synths and samples, sassy vocals, and even a risque’ French monologue from Stromae.

Closer “L.E.S. Girls” slips into pop ballad mode, a pretty love song redolent of nostalgia and regret. “Lower East Side boy, I wasn’t meant for you,” Madonna coos. “Everything fades away.”