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BRMC didn't try to ride The Strokes train at all. The NME lumped them together with The Strokes and a few other dissimilar bands because they were trying to convince everyone there was a scene at the time, and all rock bands (no matter what their specific sound) were part of it.
A lot of the songs on BRMC's first album sound like The Jesus And Mary Chain of Psychocandy-era but bigger (in terms of production) and with fuzz rather than screeching distortion; some others, my favourites, are slow, sunburnt drones, like murky shoegazer music. It's a good album but you need to listen to it a few times to appreciate it (apart from the singles).
The second album, Take Them On, On Your Own, is mainly faster and harder, bludgeoning bluesy rock. I think its their best: the songwriting is a bit better, and its subtly more varied (Ha Ha High Babe and Rise Or Fall have effects-laden guitars which make them sound like electro).
HOWL is brilliant in the tradition of following noisy albums with a stripped down, simple detour (like The Velvet Underground's S/T, JAMC's Darklands): classic songwriting and lots of instruments, though their lyrics are clichéd ('man in black / redemption / preachers' Johnny Cash twaddle).
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