The skinny:

It’s possible that over the past several weeks you’ve noticed the reviews slow to a trickle around these parts. We had our reasons! Cookies weren’t involved! Okay, maybe they were! All of us at Tripwire HQ are pleased to introduce to you today a new chapter in our “take” on music criticism—by handing over the keys. Starting this week and every Tuesday hereafter, we’ll be posting a full album stream through our friends over at LaLa. What we’d like you to do is lend us your brainwaves and tweet whatever crosses your mind while listening. Maybe there’s a riff you can’t get out of your head. A lyric? A moment? An image? If you’re feeling ambitious, spend your 124 characters reviewing the record as a whole. Just toss those tweets over to us at @thetripwire and by the end of the week, we’ll cobble together and share the beautiful mess of a madlib it creates. Or, if you’re a complete Luddite/TwitterHater, you can just leave a review in the comments section. We’re flexible. You’re the boss now.

This week’s album is Julian Casablancas’ Phrazes For the Young, the Strokes frontman’s first solo adventure.

A lot of people on the Internet are poking fun at the way Jules moved last night while performing “11th Dimension” for the nation on the Tonight Show. Not that bad! We’ll admit that the vocals are pretty brittle throughout, but look at the symmetry sandwiching that mammoth vocal hook: two sets of keys, two guitars (could be another hidden in the back) and two drumkits. This, is a dude that thinks shit though often enough. Let him be free!

The bright side of this brief quote from Strokes’ singer Julian Casablancas is that it means several new Strokes songs are somewhere near finished. So there’s that! “There is a disagreement as to whether the songs are ready,” Casablancas told The Sun. “Some of the band think they are and others don’t. I’m somewhere in the middle.” The whole L.A. residency, New York houses, solo touring gigs can’t make the resolution to that all that timely either. “The problem is getting us together,” he said. “We’re scattered everywhere, and apart from when we’re rehearsing we don’t see each other. We’re not like people who go to the movies together.” But hey, at least this delayed album dilemna seems less overbearing than say, a yearlong sentence due to gun charges. (Via: NME)

By now you’re very much aware that frontStroke Julian Casablancas is getting into the solo album racket. You’ve probably also enjoyed the many melodic curves and turns of that album’s synthtastic early listen, “11th Dimension.” Casablancas will be bestowing further riches in the coming weeks by finally releasing Phrazes for the Young (November 2nd in the UK; November 3rd in the States) and spending the month of November in residence at LA’s Downtown Palace Theater. Every Friday of next month he’ll be performing solo cuts which, considering how wildly what we’ve heard has differed so far, may be nothing like the weirdly operatic and newly streaming “River of Brakelights” above. Surprises! Again, just to be clear, if you don’t live anywhere near LA, you won’t be as rich as someone who does. No word yet on a full tour, though hopefully the recording of the next Strokes full-length might get in the way of all that. It was a close call.

Oh I’m sorry, does that not sound like fun to you? Does that seem a little weird? Loosen up, maaaan! Mr. Casablancas has just made “11th Dimension” available for streaming on his MySpace page. It sounds like a synthy Strokes workout video as hosted by Bach. That is a good thing. There are web rumors circulating this week that Albert Hammond has gone a bit off the rails recently, a rock star detour that may or may not put the brakes on the current recording of the next Strokes full-length. We’ll see. If half of Phrazes for the Young is as good as this is, the extended wait’s not going to matter much at all.