Take every great dark band from the '80s and throw them into a blender and
out will spit the critics' newest wunderkinds, Interpol. It's impossible not
to discuss the band's obvious influences—take Joy Division and squeeze them
through a shoegazer filter; throw in some Echo & the Bunnymen, Chameleons,
name-your-postpunk-band, ad naseum. Yet the band escapes sounding derivative
perhaps for the same reason the electroclash and garage rock movements have
been so easy to latch on to—it's so refreshing to hear something that isn't
aggressive rap/rock or bubblegum pop that everything old is all of sudden
seeming new again. The music may hearken back to—and basically
imitate—another era, but at least it's a likeable era. It's also an era
that, while on everybody's minds with 24-Hour Party People, has thus far escaped revisionist bands until now.
The CD starts out strictly shoegazer—quiet whirlpool guitars, slightly
echoey vocals. You can almost hear the fog swirling around in the
background. Then they launch into Joy Division on the second track with
strong, angsty vocals taking center stage. From there on out, it's just a
trip down the '80s rabbit hole. Interpol are New Yorkers who have their
brains and musical influences stuck across the Atlantic, but they still
treat their city with an ode in the contemplative "NYC." They accompany
their strong guitar-drum-bass simplicity and staccato post-punk beats by
relying on singer Daniel Kessler's vocals that immediately evoke Ian Curtis
but also contain a strange bit of James' Tim Booth's wavering vulnerability
thrown in. This band even manages to make one of their catchiest songs, "Say
Hello to the Angels," sound interminably lonely and wistful. It's a
combination that's been missing when anger took the stage in alternative
music, and we welcome the return.
Interpol Turn On the Bright Lights
