How a Costa Rican mountain session shaped the Strokes' seventh studio album
In short: After the success of 2020's The New Abnormal, the Strokes reunited with producer Rick Rubin for a recording experience unlike any other. Far from a traditional studio, the band found themselves playing to the ocean in the mountains of Guanacaste, Costa Rica.
The creation of Reality Awaits, released on July 24, 2026, began in 2022. Seeking a departure from standard studio environments, the band and producer Rick Rubin utilized the province of Guanacaste in Costa Rica. Rubin described the sessions as an immersive experience, akin to performing a concert for the ocean from a mountaintop. While the Costa Rican sessions provided a fantastical atmosphere, further recording took place at Rubin's California-based studios, including Shangri-La and The Mansion.
Guitarist Albert Hammond Jr. noted that the sessions felt looser in style compared to their previous work. This creative shift was accompanied by a documentary, In Transit: Part II, directed by Johann Rashid. The film follows the Costa Rican sessions and serves as a spiritual successor to the band's 2001 documentary, In Transit, which captured their European tour during the era of The Modern Age EP.
The album's rollout involved several unique promotional tactics. In April 2026, the band sent cassette tapes of the single "Going Shopping" to 100 fans who had engaged with their SMS service. The album's visual identity, also crafted by Rashid, draws inspiration from Richard Prince's 1989 photograph, Untitled (Cowboy).
Upon release, the album achieved significant commercial success, reaching number eight on the UK Albums Chart and number thirteen on the Billboard 200. In its first week in the United States, it earned 29,991 album-equivalent units, driven by 17,934 album sales and 11,983 streaming-equivalent albums. While critics offered generally favorable reviews, with Metacritic noting a weighted average of 70 out of 100, some reviewers, such as Rolling Stone's Jon Dolan, found the work to be at times inscrutable or bizarre.
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- Summary by Intellect · source: Reality Awaits
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