Interpol Review

I found this exhilarating review of Interpol's Turn on the Bright Lights (music) inside the first issue of The Believer. It's from an essay called Well-Dressed Men Sing Songs for Oblivion by Matthew Derby.

[...]I've been listening to Interpol's Turn on the Bright Lights with autistic frequency. It's one of those meaty, transcendent records that depresses you briefly midway through, when you realise there's less than half a record left to hear. That stark, austere black and red cover art just barely hints at the cavernous, nighttime free-fall of the record inside. That the second song, "Obstacle 1", contains the phrase "You'll go stabbing yourself in the neck" alone makes it one of the best albums of 2002, but the line, hurled into an overdriven, hand-held mic by singer Paul Banks, who often sounds as if he's being chased by a large man with a truncheon, is only one of many moments I'm thankful this band had the foresight to record. "NYC", a remorseful paean to the music scene in which Interpol was conceived (the original lineup met while in film school at NYU in 1998), is as elegiac as they come. The last minute or so of "Stella was a Diver and She Was Always Down", also, is astounding - the ascendant beauty of the bass line as it diverges from the minimalist, Television-influenced call-and-response guitar chords has made me tremble feverishly. And then there's "The New", a vivid, complex depiction of self-recriminatory lament masquerading as a pretty pop ballad. The opening line casts out a sweet hopefulness even as it's overcome by doubt: "I wish I could live free / I hope it's not beyond me / settling down, it takes time. One day we'll live together and life will be better / I've got it here, yeah, in my mind." The chorus doesn't offer much in the way of comfort either: "I can't pretend I don't need to defend some part of me from you." This is not the sort of pop song that lends itself easily to dance, or coitus, or whatever else pop songs are supposed to stir in the listener, but it illustrates well the richly ambivalent emotional terrain covered by the band throughout the album.[...]

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