Interpol’s bright lights show signs of flickering
Kevin Bronson on
3
Interpol sounded less like a band geeked out about the release of its fourth album and more like a band in the throes of a mid-career crisis on Monday night. At a semi-private show for KCRW-FM at Berkeley Street Studio, the New Yorkers performed two four-song sets that bookended an interview conducted by the radio station’s music director, Jason Bentley. (The session will air at 11:15 a.m. Thursday on “Morning Becomes Eclectic.”)
The band’s new album, “Interpol,” is out today (stream it here), and except for moments like “Lights” and “Barricade,” it feels as if last decade’s premier post-punk revivalists are running in place. The post-9/11 world seemed a bleak place when the black-clad lads unveiled “Turn on the Bright Lights” in 2003, and it still might be bleak today. But the new music principals Paul Banks, Daniel Kessler, Sam Fogarino and the now-departed Carlos Dengler have given us leans toward the monochrome, its slow-boiling tension and atmospherics seldom leading to the emotive explosions of the band’s best material.
Dengler, who quit the band after the new, Alan Moulder-produced album was completed, has been replaced by David Pajo (Slint) in the live lineup, which is also augmented by keyboardist Brandon Curtis (Secret Machines). On Monday, in front of a small but adoring audience, they sounded great, and even a bit steeped in history when they delivered “NYC.”
In the interview, Bentley noted how Interpol’s music continues to be informed by the New York City experience. “New York is such a hyper-stimulating place,” Banks said with a laugh, “and not always in a good way.” Added Fogarino: “I think we could have made this record in Tahiti” and it would have sounded like New York.
Maybe these guys should try a change of scenery.
||| Live: Interpol plays tonight at Space 15 Twenty on Cahuenga, and Oct. 23 at the Greek Theatre.
Photo by Jeremiah Garcia
Great review and more of the reason I read this blog. Buzzbands is never afraid to call it like it is.
Actually, I think “Lights” is loud but meandering,saving its punch until the end, when I no longer care. “Barricade” sounds like it could have been included in the first half of Our Love to Admire. In fact, the only standout on the new album is “Memory Serves Well.” There are so many similarities between their 2007 release and this one, that I begin to wonder what they did in the studio (see “A Time to be So Small”). “Always Malaise” and “Try it On” has the vocals of a man slowly drowning in his own anguish, lips pressed on a bullhorn and the aimless sonic expedition that marked Our Love to Admire’s closer, “The Lighthouse.” The rest of the album finds the band indulging Carlos D’s uptempo dance rhythms, or the indie version of progressive rock. Meh….
Thank you Bronson, from the bottom of my heart.