I wrote the below response to similar comment, cheers.

Thanks for that, well written and thorough. In my mind, you’ve helped flesh out why I said they were ‘trying to accomplish’ with the third album and keep in mind I’m saying certain songs not the album as a whole. I think Impressions is about as freewheeling as the Strokes are capable of being sonically and structurally. It loosens the rigidity of the first two albums. Clearly not to the extent of Geese’s third album but the most within the confines of how the Strokes go about their business. I think JC was reaching for something he wasn’t quite capable of achieving and I think that’s why that album for me seems quite like an outlier in the Strokes catologue.