Interpol created the soundtrack for post-9/11 New York. Alongside The Strokes, LCD Soundsystem, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and The National, they were one of the highly accomplished turn of the millennium class of emergent rock stars, graduating from the Lower East Side’s Mercury Lounge to become internationally revered.
On my maiden voyage to Manhattan in the early noughts, a copy of their debut album, Turn on the Bright Lights, freshly purchased from Other Music, was prised into my Sony Discman and played on repeat as I walked around in an awestruck daze. Unlike portable CD players, as the 21st century accelerated, Interpol didn’t become redundant.
Antics in 2004 certainly wasn’t a difficult second album, spawning a slew of anthemic singles and the name of a popular Dublin indie club. Interpol’s profile and box office appeal blossomed. Meanwhile, singer Paul Banks dated Danish supermodel Helena Christensen. The band survived an unsuccessful stint on a major record label, personnel changes, and an extended hiatus.
The Other Side of Make-Believe is their seventh studio album. It features an eye-catching production team of Flood (Depeche Mode, New Order, U2) and Alan Moulder (Nine Inch Nails, My Bloody Valentine) who recorded the band in London after a series of remote song-writing sessions.
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The lead single and opening track, Toni, is one of their finest songs yet, a slow-burning, smouldering mid-tempo torch song that combines all of Interpol’s familiar motifs in a riveting new way. As Paul Banks has noted, in music there’s always a seventh time to make a first impression. This is a much more minimal affair than a lot of Interpol records, but it still sounds rich and multi-layered. Multitracked vocals are virtually absent, but angular guitars, staccato drumming and their addictive blend of melancholia and euphoria are all present and correct.
Something Changed and Renegade Hearts are two more gems. This is a crack outfit who know how to deploy an irresistible piano arpeggio, defiantly surviving the vagaries of fashion and musical fads, despite at one time undisputedly holding the title as one of the most fashionable bands in the world.
A timely documentary adaptation of Lizzy Goodman’s absorbing oral history, Meet Me in the Bathroom: Rebirth and Rock and Roll in New York City 2001–2011, shines a light on arguably the last essential wave of innovative and essential guitar music. Paul Banks and company were among that scene’s finest lights. Older, wiser and maturing like fine wine, they are one of this century’s most enduring and special bands.
