Photo courtesy of Popscene

Here’s a riddle for you: How many Strokes does it take to make a Strokesy sound? As it turns out, just one curly-haired, skinny guitarist. Albert Hammond Jr.’s debut solo album Yours to Keep sounds like catching up with your friends—if your friends kick-started the New York garage rock revival, spawning a wave of copycats and creating the type of sophomore album pressure that’s enough to keep you up all night worrying that every review will take it’s title from your debut album and read: Is This It? Oh, and then one of the friends—let’s call him Albert—decides to do his own little thing but that little thing is really catchy in its own right and involves lyrics containing inside jokes with the Beach Boys (two gold stars for anyone who writes in with a comment about which song samples from “Kokomo”) and an overarching feeling of dancing in the sunshine (see “101”). Catch Albert Hammond Jr. this Thursday at Popscene. Popscene-sf.com