Four years ago, Julian Casabancas, frontman for garage rock veterans The Strokes, announced he was embarking on a new venture, an experimental rock project named Julian Casablancas + The Voidz. Now, three years after the release of the group’s debut record, they’ve announced that they’re not only releasing a new album, but they’re changing their name too.
As Pitchfork reports, Julian Casablancas + The Voidz have today announced their return with a new, as-yet-untitled album which is due next year.
The announcement was made by way of a trailer which was uploaded to YouTube. The trailer, a parody of Michael Jackson’s legendary ‘Thriller’ film clip, is a creepy, four minute film that gives very little information apart from the fact that the new album is set to be released via RCA and Casabalancas’ own Cult Records.
However, another bit of juicy information was dropped thanks to the new trailer, and that’s that the band are no longer called Julian Casablancas + The Voidz. Rather, they’ve dropped the name of their famous frontman and are now just going by ‘The Voidz’, which should make it much easier to fit on festival posters and marquees in front of venues.
While Casablancas has been hard at work on a new album from The Voidz, it’s not yet clear when he’ll be making the return to his main project, The Strokes. Back in July, it was announced by guitarist Albert Hammond Jr’s father that the band were hard at work on album number six, with legendary producer Rick Rubin overseeing the sessions.
However, soon afterwards, Hammond Jr took to Twitter to let fans down easy, stating that “We met and played a few music ideas for Rick to feel out a vibe but even a theoretical album plan would be years away, if at all.”
We met and played a few music ideas for Rick to feel out a vibe but even a theoretical album plan would be years away, if at all.
— Albert Hammond Jr (@alberthammondjr) July 30, 2017
So while album number six from The Strokes is still quite a while away, we can rest assured that there’s material from Julian Casablancas and his noisey side project, The Voidz heading your way in a matter of months.
Check out The Voidz’ new album trailer:
