Music
Tyranny
Julian Casablancas was one of the big surprises on Daft Punk's Random Access Memories, vocoder-cooing like an Eighties synth-pop pinup. He must've liked the mutating. His second solo set ditches his Strokes steez for a shredding art-punk squad (à la the Voidoids or early Pere Ubu). His vocals lurch from robosoul falsetto to death-metal howl; the vibe is dark and apoplectic. "Black hole sucking us into oblivion," he notes on the proggy "M.utually A.ssured D.estruction." This isn't music to hook up to – it rarely even makes much sense. It's the sound of a man shedding his skin. Not pretty, but more compelling for it.