Review: Interpol's Interpol

I’ll be totally honest; this is the first time I’ve ever listened to Interpol, and I don’t know a lot about the band. A product of the post-punk revival movement of the late 90’s, they fit the mold that I understand the genre to be to a T: Slow, echoing vocals with dissonant harmonies. There are swooping, falling, drooping melodies that never ever resolve when you expect them to. There is frequent use of diminished chords, and a lot of flatting done in the slower songs. And for some reason, really good drumming.

Interpol starts out good. Really good. The first four or five tracks are very energetic, very catchy songs with an excellent rhythm and a very good drumline. The instrumentation is well done, with all the right chords in just the right amount of echo soup, so that all the little accenting tones stay not one second longer than they’re needed.

The vocals irk me, though. Frontman Paul Banks has a singing style that comes off as strained, forced, clenched, and with little emotion. And across every song, his style and sound remain exactly the same. This causes me to believe that he’s trying too hard for consistency in his performances instead of exploring his range. And the ever-present distortion in the vocal tracks never allow Banks to show his true abilities. The guy just sounds like a machine.

The second half of the album isn’t as inspired as the first, I would say. Four of the final five tracks feature a simple, repeating four-bar riff all throughout, and none of them do a very good job of carrying the four to five minute pieces along, which is really the only thing an all-pervasive melody can do. The final two tracks feel like a two-parter, the wandering, electronic, ambient All of the Ways tries to be way more minor than it is, giving way to the almost redemptive sounding The Undoing. And the first couple minutes of Undoing are good. An okay riff accompanied by a few strings and light percussion. It’s not until the second chorus, when the band decides to layer some pretty dissonant and jarring chords directly on top of one another that I’m shocked from my reverie. And then the British-New York City band sings in Spanish for the rest of the song with Banks pleading ‘Please, please, the place we’re in now’ in the background for an extended, trumpeted outro.

In this album, I hear the workings of smart musicians. I can hear the foundations of a strong set of songs, and I definitely saw their passion and talent. What I don’t see is direction. I don’t know where they’re trying to go with this work. I don’t see what’s supposed to be blowing me away and winning me over. Interpol’s Interpol is a good album gone astray, it’s worth looking into because like I said, the first half is quite nice. It’s just not going to have the staying power that other albums do.