There’s irony in that ambition of course. While frontman Julian Casablancas made his name in his early days as the king of ennui coolness with his popular band The Strokes, The Voidz is all about deep engagement.

Whether it’s the way the arrangements and instrumentations try to sidestep any conventional “rock music” approach, or the way the lyrics mash-up personal and socio-political thoughts, the ambitious nature of Virtue contains none of the effortless cool that made The Strokes burst onto the scene seemingly as born rockstars without even trying, churning our endless garage rock anthems in the process.

This is instead a laborious record. And while it may not be as abrasively in-your-face as 2014’s Tyranny, it is still not a soundtrack for barbeques or drunken weekend loft parties. That means it works best going into it with the goal of “getting it”. There has to be an effort on the listener’s part, which — again — ironically likely mostly consist of fans of the Strokes first two, incredibly immediate records.

In that sense, Virtue is fighting an uphill battle, but with the benefit of the Internet as a context-provider (there are already many think-pieces/ quasi-reviews about the record, as well as a few interesting interviews with Casablancas about the album), it makes it less impossible to go into the record completely blind.

As such, tracks like middle-eastern-post-disco of “QYURRYUS” won’t be such a mind-melt. Easily the track that best balances The Voidz’s esoteric quality and more-conventional hooks, the song will be crazy to listen to without any context (whether of The Strokes / The Voidz / Casablancas / Internet post-irony/ Internet-infused music influences).

It’s essentially endless hooks adorned with industrial-pop synths that swirl like post-futurist Indian flutes and electro-grunge guitars. That there are also an array of robotic-versus-human vocals atop it all seems completely natural. There’s no denying that the band’s ability to make the most left-field touches feel fitting is a triumph.

The rest of the band — Jeramy “Beardo” Gritter, Amir Yaghmai, Jacob “Jake” Bercovici, Alex Carapetis, Jeff Kite — are clearly able players, and their technical abilities give the record that sense of being wildly experimental without going over its head.

That late 80s/early 90s dance-pop flavor continues with “All Wordz Are Made Up”, which has the album’s catchiest chorus, something that blends a characteristic Casablancas refrain with a Milli Vanilli melodicism.

The 80s pad mesh sits upon processed percussions and electro-crunched guitars alongside something that sounds like saxophone and horns imported from a chart-topping R’n’B hit. That its 3-minutes-plus never ceases in serving up a dose of “What-the-hell-is-that?” is a feat.

Some are less-disco and more experimental computer rock, such as “My Friend the Walls”, which moves from its inevitably-Radiohead-compared verses onto a relatively straightforward chorus; the dirge stoner-grunge of “Pyramid of Bones”, which starts off like Marilyn Manson covering The Strokes covering Ozzy Osbourne; to the lo-fidelity garage-pun of “We’re Where We Were”, which would take the place as the record’s most alienatingly abrasive moment if it wasn’t for its preceding track, the death-punk bootleg tape-sounding “Black Hole”.

Some of the record’s friendlier moments come in the form that Casablancas fans will no doubt trace back to The Strokes.

Opener “Leave It In My Dreams” is the kind of rollicking new-wave balladry that band excels at, complete with the kind of engaged/disengaged pensiveness in Casablancas’ voice and bitter-sweet notes that many have latched onto as his greatest asset.

“Lazy Boy” is a little less inviting, but moves with the kind of leisurely pace that sounds familiar. The closing track, “Pointlessness”, is all beautifully crumbling melodies amid crackling synth and processed industrial instrumentations.

Those descriptions should make it clear that this is a record of disparate elements, some familiar and some not, but almost-all completely utilized in ways that are clearly trying to push its rock and pop influences as far The Voidz can without sounding as impenetrable as Tyranny was to some.

The socio-political allusions are there but don’t feel as expansive as the music. “I lost what’s mine/ Trust in systems of the law/ I lost what’s mine/ Somebody (help)/ I lost what’s mine/ Odd creatures, walking tall” from “QYURRYUS” suggests a sense of powerlessness but doesn’t pinpoint anything in particular.

“Pyramid of Bones” meanwhile offers up something more tangible with “Lies are simple, truth is complex/ Murder in the name of personal comfort/ Just remember, they surrendered/ Dangerous to be right, if everyone is wrong”.

It will inevitably lay on the listeners to feel whether the abstraction (and hints of directness) of the lyrics fit with the far-more expansive nature of the music. It’s unfair to say that most politically-charged music tends to move in more obvious and direct ways, both musically and lyrically (politics are complex, so distilling it in succinct ways in songs only makes sense), but in its ambition for a broader human scope, Virtue feels out-of-step with its musicality. This is a record that is easy to admire for its aspirations, and is more successful at what its tries to do than the debut.

The Voidz clearly doesn’t want to deliver any kind of ear-candy, and in that way the enjoyment of its records may be as much in the hands of the listener as it is in the band’s.

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