On their recent side projects, Fab, Albert and Nikolai tried to show they could work outside the Strokes' neo-New Wave sound. Julian Casablancas' solo debut takes that MO to its limit. Phrazes is like his version of Thom Yorke's The Eraser — guitars submarined by wild-angled synths, off-kilter beats tripping up big ballads. A few songs have the old leather-jacket kick, but things get weirder as he explores alienation from a Lower East Side he once ruled. When he mourns, "Yuppies invading!" on the techno-country "Ludlow St.," he seems ready to move upstate and begin his "gentleman farmer" period.