Review Summary: Interpol is the most cohesive album ever made by the band, an ambitious effort with the occasional misstep.
Enough has been said about the unfavorable circumstances in which Interpol have released their fourth and self-titled album so I will try to be brief. It arrives three years since their last effort which was the first true disappointment in their career – a long wait only marginally (if at all) palliated by the release of Paul Banks's solo record. In this solar year the bassist Carlos Dengler left the band after completing his part on the record, and that was a bit of a blow to many a fan's image of the band as a whole – they had always seemed like an organic group, with every member contributing his part to the magic. Now the bassist on tour is Dave Pajo, who has his fingers in several pies, and they added a keyboard player who may or may not have done some commendable work on the album, but many will mostly know him as “the douchebag who ruins the chorus of Barricade when they play it live” (full disclosure: they are still as massive live as they've ever been).
What about the record then?
Early anticipations helped paint a tentative picture of what the songs would be like. There was talk about the record being “orchestral” (which most of you will probably be wary of) and also about that big reverbating guitar sound being back- making the record to some extent a return to the atmospheres of Turn On The Bright Lights, the masterpiece they never quite matched.
Of the two first singles that surfaced on the internet, Lights and Barricade, in retrospect only the former was truly descriptive of the album as a whole. Barricade is a tight punk-funk number comparable to Slow Hands and Obstacle 1 in swagger; Lights is a slow, brooding and moody track that simmers, builds and builds without exploding. And that big wash of reverberating guitars, yes it's back. In the form an extremely simplistic single note strumming that builds ambience without being a riff. That's pretty much the blueprint for the whole record, while there is literally nothing else like Barricade.
This record, in general, is the biggest departure Interpol have ever had: if even their latest much criticized Our Love To Admire sported some of their trademark angular riffs, now they've thrown that entire manner of writing songs out of the window. It is refreshing, as perhaps the failure on their last album was just a sign of their sound physiologically getting stale. But I can see how the change in style may frustrate many fans: if they lamented the lack of punk-funk grooviness on OLTA, they'll find even less of that here.
The songs do not put that much emphasis on rhythm anymore, focusing instead on ambience and slowly building climaxes. The guitar work is almost entirely devoid of riffs and it focuses instead on creating a huge wall of sound. Interpol have never sounded so big, and the songs never so dense and saturated.
The “orchestral” attribute given to the record is true only in the sense that some unconventional instruments will surface here and there, particularly horns; they will competently adorn the most rousing and cathartic moments in the record, without overshadowing the actual band.
The general mood that is felt in this effort is markedly different from that of the previous Interpol records, in that while the band usually tried to sound sleazy and consumed by earthly desires both musically and in their subject matter, here they try to reach for near-mystical heights, the message conveyed sounding much more expansive and universal. The overall change in sound and mood I could call a turn to arena rock. I could but I won't: while the songs are indeed bigger and less tunnel-visioned, they maintain a sharp edge of resentment and bitterness, only occasionally counterpointed by sparks of resilience and good spirits.
That much is evident from the very first track, my personal standout, Success, where a simple guitar line much like the one in Lights leads into Banks's trademark robotic drone, occasionally broken into a more empathetic delivery. The chorus, sky high, introduces a musical item that will appear again – an ominous couplet that repeats itself continuously with more and more fervor, turning into a hypnotic mantra: “I have succeded, I won't compete for long/ I'm not supposed to show you” while everything else sounds like it's simultaneously rising in volume and falling apart. Memory Serves is a similar affair but there seems to be a binary division in this song – the first half being dreary and bleak and the second more uplifting, with one of the most earnest lyrics in Interpol's career: “Don't have to say that you'd love to/ But baby please that you want to/ Someday” - a wonderfully unpretentious display of fragility. The song, similarly immense, ends with just vocals and drums, a serene calm after the storm. The whole dynamics to the way in which it rises and falls seem perfectly organic – fluid, like the best material on TOBL and perhaps even less stilted at that.
The beginning of the record is a tremendous one-two punch but it is followed by a couple of tentative and meandering numbers. Summer Well is a lovely (and perhaps needed) upbeat digression after the dark and somber first two tracks, but it seems to wander without a clear direction. Lights is a successful stab at greatness akin to the first notes of the album, while Barricade sports the first legitimate hook so far, but by now it will have become abundantly clear that this record is not about hooks. The single stands out oddly, and despite its tight progression it still feels like something of an afterthought compared to the grander gestures that are plentiful here.
Always Malaise (The Man I Am) quickly restores the mood created in the beginning. The song is clearly split in half, and as is often the case here the climax at the end is exhilarating if perhaps a bit abruptly placed after the first tense and melodramatic half.
By now you will have noticed how the lyrics have taken a turn for the more straightforward: Banks has abandoned the elaborate (and at times cringeworthy) wordplay for plain and simple expression, that in its simplicity sometimes suggests eerie connotations. In the otherwise forgettable Safe Without, there's this line that resonates mysteriously: “I think the winter will be wonderful.....”.
Elsewhere the lyrics alternate between suggestive and sappy (low point: that part about kisses and tears to cry in Barricade..), but most of the time they make sense explicitly, which rarely happened before.
In the back half of the record the band seem to lose focus with two middling tracks (Safe Without and Try It On) where nothing really happens, but the two songs at the end provide an immense payoff and they echo the greatness of the beginning. All Of The Ways is repetitive and it progresses slowly like a march: it never grows or changes, it just pushes forward with ominous guitars and echoing, tinny percussions- the use of which, coupled with the whole atmosphere, reminds me faintly of Paper Tiger by Spoon.
The last track, the Undoing, begins sounding like a wonderfully constructed, uplifting aftermath to the previous one: it sounds like rays of sunlight ripping through the clouds, until the mood is set back to grim, accompanied by unsettling lyrics in spanish (Banks speaks it fluently), and then the song spirals into the most orchestral and rousing moment you will find here – a perfect portrait of the record: big, yet dark and restrained.
Interpol is the most coherent album ever made by the band: it seems like the first record that was truly and deliberately conceived as a whole, from start to finish, and not just as a collection of songs. In that aspect, it makes the previous efforts almost sound sloppy (yes, even TOBL), but you won't be able to enjoy it in the same way you enjoyed Interpol before. You won't be able to marvel at this bassline, or that riff, and generally individual musicianship takes a backseat in favor of a more holistic picture that will take a few steps back to enjoy fully – but it will reward repeated listens.
