The cover of the album says it all. It's the band logo being broken up. Ladies an gentleman, Interpol are broken. Once they were they were being hailed as the next Joy Division, they're now yesterday's news. But it's not all bad, there's some signs of life, just not enough to justify them being back. The band started beautifully with "Turn on the Bright Lights" and "Antics", a great one-two punch to the start of the career. They then released "Our Love to Admire" in which I'm in the minority for liking. Now having a chance to redeem themselves to their fanbase, they fizzle.
Musically the band is as good as they've ever been. Hard hitting drums, thumping bass lines and the usual kick ass guitar we've come to expect. "Success" followed by "Memory Serves" are a testament to that, and if you haven't gotten used to the weird vocal effects for Paul Banks by these two tracks, you won't enjoy this album at all. As unexciting as these songs sound, things start to pick up.
"Summer Well" through "Always Malaise (The Man That I Am)" are probably the best four sequenced songs in Interpol's canon. It's classic Intepol that channel the first two albums very well and helped earn them the new kings of post punk. First single "Barricade" is a chest thumper and as hard as a song as the band has written, it may be one of the best songs they've ever written.
Sadly, this album also contains one of the worst songs they've written. "Try It On" is one od the most boring turds of a song a rock band has written in years, it even makes me question if this was the same band that wrote "PDA". Luckily "All of the Ways" washes the taste out of our mouth, if only for a little while. "The Undoing" closes us out, and yet, we're stuck with another boring and weakly track that hust makes you scratch your head.
There's not much to say here. It's almost as if all the energy has been taken from the band in favor of piano and string sections. Not that that's a bad thing at all, but a band that had such fury and a knack for writing some of the best alt-rock songs of the past decade shouldn't flame out so quick like this. Maybe it's a drought and they can recapture the glory. But with former bassist and brainchild Carlos D leaving, we're left to wonder what could've been, but for right now, what was.
** out of *****
No comments:
Post a Comment