The New Abnormal, released almost two decades after The Strokes’ classic debut Is This It, was an altogether successful reset. An extraordinarily tight rhythm section anchored their signature sound, but during the group’s 2010s wilderness period, the music – even at its best – was frequently jarring, sounding like machines in a factory cramming as many ideas as possible into a three-minute song. They finally slowed down and stretched out on The New Abnormal, and the result was some of their most effortlessly beautiful and affecting music since their early days. “The Adults Are Talking” is a definitive song for the band, with a hypnotically clicking beat and a circular melody, but finds its strength in restraint. “Selfless” is achingly pretty, and the closing “Ode to the Mets” employs the band’s chiming guitar playing to articulate devotion and disappointment in a way only an artist 20 years in could pull off.