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The good news is that they're too skilled, experienced, and important to make a record that's just a mess, and for a while there's nothing so terrible about this one.
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If Interpol-an album that plainly documents a band stretching itself as far as it can unimpressively go-is what a large number of indie fans are going to settle for in this day and age, I can't help but shake my head and sigh in response.
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MojoNew York's post-punkers are mooder than ever. [Oct. 2010, p. 90]
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Overall, Interpol seems cinematic, abstract and complex, but that adds up to something interesting rather than thrilling.
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Interpol mostly deliver on this album with what they do best, sprinkling some of their most creative moments across it. If this is a schism, it'll be intriguing to see what happens when the pieces eventually do settle.
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It could be that they're distracted – they've been together 10 years, and have numerous solo projects; is there more to for them to do with Interpol?
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Interpol sounds both strangely distant and overly familiar, like a band struggling to remember who they are.
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Interpol may not be quite self-parody, but it's also not the sort of thing that's going to make them hip again anytime soon. Not that they would even care.
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Alternative PressEven if Banks sticks to the "I've got two secrets but I only told you one" songwriting approach, hopefully a band shakeup will spark the soulfulness only occasionally heard in his contributions. [Oct 2010, p.118]
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I sense a more natural sense of songcraft here. Banks is still trying too hard, seemingly attempting to write songs he thinks people will like rather than songs that, whether simple or arpeggio-filled, he and his mates like.
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It's a better album than their last, and diehard fans should be satisfied, but it's not going to get the rest of us very excited.
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Where they used to sound like the crackling of a subway car rounding a bend or the seediest alleys of New York in the pre-dawn hours, here they sound like alt-rock renderings of what moody post-punk is supposed to sound like.
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Intentional or not, some of that transition seeps into the music, giving songs room to ramble but nothing resembling a core.
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Humbled by a silenced rhythm section and bafflingly reverberated guitars, the majority of Interpol is little more than background static. Maybe it's time for an intervention.
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As meticulously as these sounds and instruments are recorded, as beautiful and haunting as they sometimes sound, they don't add up to more than one or two truly memorable songs.
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Instead of ending tensely and dramatically they are the final whimper and sigh of an album named after a band that have lost their way and aren't sure which direction they should be heading.
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Four long players into their career, you can't help but wonder if Interpol is just trying too hard to recapture some of that Turn On the Bright Lights magic. Either that, or the creative juices have been stifled by a rough turn of events.
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Interpol is undoubtedly a solid effort, but solid shouldn't be satisfying for a band that has proved to possess the talent of indie rock's elite class.
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Even though I'm sad this record has left no lasting effect, I'm also happy that it might mean my life is heading somewhere positive.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 90 out of 118
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Mixed: 19 out of 118
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Negative: 9 out of 118
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Sep 8, 2010
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Sep 9, 2010
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Sep 7, 2010