Anyone who's ever wondered what guitarist Albert Hammond Jr. brings to The Strokes need only spin just about any song on his solo album Yours To Keep, and listen to the familiarly tight, fuzzy three-chord riffs that he litters across the disc. And anyone who ever wondered what the rest of The Strokes bring should note that there's a certain pseudo-street-punk attitude that's missing from Yours To Keep. No contemporary band straddles the line between poseur and prince with as much entertaining precariousness as The Strokes, but on his own, Hammond proves to be more low-key—even romantic.
And like a lot of musicians who've been identified with one distinctive-sounding band for a while, Hammond takes advantage of this solo outing to work through some previously untapped influences. He plays around with British music-hall on "Call An Ambulance," and '60s girl-group sweep on "Blue Skies." He even nods to New Order on the "Love Vigilantes" homage "101," before busting out an instrumental break that contains about as sweet a power-pop lick as anything this side of 1979.
At times, Yours To Keep runs a little slack, as though Hammond weren't confident enough to know which are his best songs and which are just exercises. But the album contains a lot of strong material, made even better by Hammond's tendency to add a little extra guitar filigree every few minutes, just to make the songs even grander and more generous. Do they sound like The Strokes? Kind of, yeah. Is that a problem?