An album to admire
NOT every band would kick off their third album with a slow, six-minute track characterized by descending guitar lines and mournful sounds.
Interpol, however, have never been shy of basking in melancholy, and Our Love to Admire is an album that just exults in it.
Newly bolstered by keyboards, Our Love to Admire feels full and rich where previous Interpol albums sometimes felt gaunt and stripped to the bare necessities.
The old themes, however, remain; emptiness, dislocation, and a rather caddish attitude to romance, as encapsulated on No1 in Threesome or the pounding, sarcastic, The Heinrich Manoeuvre – a sour kiss-off to an ex-lover that sees frontman Paul Banks asking “How are things on the West Coast?/ I hear you’re moving real fine” atop taut, stabbing bass.
Further in, the band experiments with some more sprawling, elaborate song structures.
The excellent Mammoth locks into a driving groove that’s most uncharacteristic for Interpol, Daniel Kessler trying out riff after riff like he’s just discovered what a guitar can do, while The Lighthouse is the album’s climactic moment.
Interpol fans were waiting with nervous anticipation for this album, with all the hype and speculation about the possibilities of signing for a major label, yet their fears of ruining the sound are for the most part unfounded.
This album really benefits from a greater level of instrumentation over the last two; oboe solo anyone?
Production is excellent throughout although some die-head fans may dislike the ‘poppier’ sound, but not on all of the tracks; there's an epic feeling throughout.
It's a captivating listen, the lyrics of Paul Banks swinging a little from the ridiculous to the sublime; some give pause for thought and reflection, others are more like slightly dodgy sixth form poetry, but as usual that's the minority.
Overall though, a thoroughly good third album that sticks to the Interpol formula, but adds a new level of polish that doesn't in anyway detract from the atmosphere and feel you'd expect.
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Friday 10 February 2012
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