Once More from the Dark Side

© Jelle Wagenaar 2010

Rarely can the first verse of the first song define the mood of an entire album. But that’s just the case with Interpol’s Interpol, the band’s new self-titled effort.

“Dreams of long life, what safety can you find? See the great unknown that shape for miles,” sings guitarist Paul Banks on “Success,” the first track of the new album (Matador Records) out today.

After nearly three years since the release of Our Love To Admire, which the band itself considered a departure from earlier work, the new album serves heaps of their original animated post-punk sound.

The tone of the album is Interpol’s own moody, menacing, daring, dark, yet-so-grandiose sound. Lyrically the album is, hmmm, look at it as if it were a movie – a black and white one to match the band’s preferred palate of grays.

With a little imagination, one could concoct a movie set in a sort of industrial metropolis where the plot tells the story of a man exploring all those psychological trips that can break or make a person in a big city. The jagged ambient sounds, textured soundscapes and sporadic guitar riffs serve as the soundtrack to heady, intellectual retrospections.

Musically, the album tells the story of a band that goes back in search for their original sound: the big washes of reverb, thumping bass lines and shoegaze-y indie rock that won them hordes of fans in 1997. Whether they’ve found it, is up to the listener, but on first listen it lacks some of the uplifting choruses and majestic buildups of earlier work.

Banks’ voice, however, makes up for any lack of explosion. His voice is the protagonist of this story and leads the listener in an orderly way through tracks that move very much like the plot of a story. But just like with any movie, there are scenes that are more important than others. The album opener “Success” and “Memory Serves,” and “All of The Ways,” are among the best and brightest.

“It would be no price to pay/I only lie to make you smile,” Banks sings in “Memory Serves,” a song where the musical tension eventually unfolds into a delicate piano-filled conclusion.

“Lights” shines  among all the other tracks. There’s desire, longing and surrender – all great ingredients for an epic track.

“All that I see/show me your ways/teach me to meet my desires...with some grace,” Banks calls out to the object of his affection while a mélange of repetitive sounds carry his message into a dark place.

“…teach me to grieve and conspire with my age.”

Though the album flows from one track to the next in flawless unison, the rest of the songs seem like fillers, there to entertain and get the listener deeper into the heart of the matter until becoming literally undone: “Me suelto en el deshacer,” or “I let go in the undoing, Banks sings in Spanish during the last track appropriately named “The Undoing.”

The band’s real life situation is full of as many twists as the album. After recording the album, bassist Carlos Dengler left the band. He was replaced with David Pajo and Brandon Curtis, who plays the keys and backs up Banks on vocals for their current tour. But lucky for us, Dengler’s thumping bass lines are the second lead act in this tragedy – as in the ancient Greek  form of art based on human suffering that offers its audience some kind of pleasure.

Hardcore Interpol fans will feel as if reacquainted with an old friend. New listeners may stay at bay or be confused by its obscurity, but curious ones could find themselves entrapped in the mystery and vagueness that is Interpol, both the album and the band.