They breathed boredom and sweated cool: Was there ever more of a critic's band than The Strokes circa the 2001 release of their debut, Is This It? Distilling influences spanning the hipster canon and rock 'n' roll's enduring classicists at their most unhinged-from The Velvet Underground and Television to early Tom Petty and Exile-era Stones-The Strokes never became the saviors that the American and British music presses predicted they would become. But in 11 songs and 33 minutes, that album-so paradoxically nonchalant, yet calculated to a fault-introduced the palettes of the pop mainstream and American underground so seductively to the revivalist trends that would become emblematic of this decade's first half.

The release last fall of "Juicebox," the first single off First Impressions of Earth, seemed to signal a deviation from the aesthetic so perfectly crafted by Is This It? and its 2003 follow-up Room on Fire. The single features a chug-a-chug bassline, front man Julian Casablanca's noticeably undistorted vocals and shredding guitar lines several degrees removed from the band's bored minimalism of yore.

Elsewhere, "Razorblade" fashions a crooning chorus from Barry Manilow's "Mandy" without an ounce of schlock, and "Vision of Division" hops from shimmying verses to jarringly volatile choruses with few pauses. Album opener "You Only Live Twice" is Impressions' most anthemic moment, the type of exultation of youthful abandon and jadedness once abundant on Strokes' albums.

But those few highlights aside, First Impressions of Earth is best described by that same song's observations on "29 different attributes/and only seven that you like." At almost twice the length of Is This It?, Impressions' bulk sounds conspicuously phoned-in, a concoction of incomplete ideas, the occasional failed indulgence and a near-absence of The Strokes' tried-and-true meticulousness and charm. It's as though their attempt at deviating from an overwhelmingly slow-crafted aesthetic was half-hearted. And though their characteristic disaffection resides in abundance, there's precious little soul to back it up.