The Strokes’ “Room on Fire” may not have had commercial success of “Is This It,” but it was still great

It couldn’t have been easy to follow up the Strokes’ album “Is This It.” What often happens after a band nails it is the group attempts to replicate what it crafted. It can take quite a while to make the follow up.

After a lengthy tour behind 2001’s “Is This It,” the Strokes immediately returned to the studio and recorded the aptly titled “Room on Fire,” a collection of songs penned by singer-songwriter Julian Casablancas. To the band’s credit, songs like the surging “Reptilia” and the poignant “Automatic Stop” aren’t clones of the tunes from the band’s breakthrough release.

The Strokes initially tabbed high-profile producer Nigel Godrich to produce but bailed, returning to “Is This It” producer Gordon Raphael, who helped make an album that is warmer and fuller sounding than the relatively lo-fi “Is This It.”

Many bands suffer from disappointing sophomore releases but the Strokes not only remained consistent for “Room on Fire” but for the following releases through 2020’s “The New Abnormal.”

“Room on Fire,” which peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard 200, was critically acclaimed but failed to match the commercial success of “Is This It.” However, “Room on Fire” went gold and shortly after the album’s release the Strokes were featured on the cover of Rolling Stone.

The New York-based band included a healthy portion of “Room on Fire” tracks when the Strokes played Seattle’s WaMu Theater in March of 2020, days before the shutdown. “Reptilia,” “Automatic Stop” and “What Ever Happened” were performed in front of a capacity crowd of 7,000 fans. The songs have aged as well as the Strokes.

The word is that the Strokes are recording an album with producer Rick Rubin in Costa Rica.