The Strokes (clockwise, from top left: Nikolai Fraiture, Julian Casablancas, Fabrizio Moretti, Albert Hammond jnr and Nick Valensi) have started to delve more into their own lives for inspiration.

The Strokes (clockwise, from top left: Nikolai Fraiture, Julian Casablancas, Fabrizio Moretti, Albert Hammond jnr and Nick Valensi) have started to delve more into their own lives for inspiration.

It's one big celebration at the Strokes' HQ in New York City. Drummer Fab Moretti has just spilt red wine on his crotch while singing the praises of band frontman Julian Casablancas.

Then Casablancas stumbles through the door and interrupts him to say the room stinks of alcohol. To this Moretti raises his voice and yells at the singer: "That's probably because I spilt it all over myself when I was talking about your beautiful vocal cords."

It's true, 27-year-old Casablancas doesn't sound his usual lazy self on the band's new album, First Impressions of Earth.

"He really did take it up a notch with his singing, and lyrically as well," says Moretti, who goes out with actress Drew Barrymore and is arguably the world's sexiest drummer.

"Julian always had it in him, in my humble opinion he was always a great vocalist but he really wanted to celebrate this time, and we wanted to celebrate it too," he says from the band's studio in the New York City Music Building.

This is the same place the band - also made up of Nikolai Fraiture (bass, 26) Nick Valensi (guitar, 24) and Albert Hammond jnr (guitar, 25) - first started jamming together back in 1998. It's also where they recorded the new album.

It is a different sounding Strokes from 2001's breakthrough Is This It and 2003's Room On Fire. Not only is Casablancas sounding more committed, his band has solidified its attack compared with its sometimes foppish earlier offerings - take Juicebox on the new album with its cross between Batman, blaxploitation and dangerous rock'n'roll.

"It was one of those songs that Julian brought in and it just fell into place. I guess we were all in a rockin' kind of mood that day," he laughs.

Then there's Ask Me Anything's mid-album interlude with mellotron - a distinctive early electric keyboard which dates back to the Beatles era - that sounds like an experiment. But Moretti disagrees: "It's stripping the band's sound to the most minimalistic version. It's a melody I would expect to hear from Julian, but it's played in a way you can really celebrate that."

The Strokes' approach to First Impressions also has a lot to do with their new producer David Kahne whose past credits include the Bangles and Paul McCartney. "He totally like inspired us to revamp our sound - you can still tell that the heart is still the Strokes but the limbs are a little different," says Moretti.