It took me a long time to come around to Interpol. I first heard them several winters ago, when one of my favorite bands opened for them at NYC’s Bowery Ballroom. Interpol’s presence on the bill jacked up the ticket price, and brought in a crowd of hipsters whose interest in the American Analog Set – still a better band, for my money – was audibly undetectable. I stayed for only a few songs of Interpol’s set. While the songs they played were the same ones I would later love on Turn on the Bright Lights, I was not feeling them that night. In retrospect, what bothered me about Interpol then – and what still bothers me a bit today, honestly – is what is also so uncannily impressive about them: even before their album dropped, before the buzz surrounding them became a full-fledged white noise hypestorm, Interpol was boldly, defiantly Interpol. They were unique and cocky when most bands are still humble. It’s kind of annoying, sure. But even then, they acted like they belonged.
And they do belong. They’ve created their own aesthetic, and they consistently make dense, atmospheric rock that doesn’t sound like any other band – I’ve never dug or fully understood the Joy Division comparisons, and much prefer John Darnielle’s suggested comparisons. They did all that good stuff on Turn on the Bright Lights, and do it again, for the most part, on Antics. The songs generally follow the same blueprint, although many goose the gloom of Bright Lights with strutting disco bass- and drumlines. Daniel Kessler’s guitar-work is evocative and pitch-perfect, and still the best thing about the band. Good songs abound here – the propulsive, pitch-black disco anthem “Slow Hands” is a brilliant single, and “Narc” and “Length of Love” are catchy, assertive and make great use of Paul Banks’ dramatic voice. The album-opening “Next Exit” is so lovely a valentine to New York that it reads like a now-school U2 song, albeit one tempered by Interpol’s black-curtains aesthetic. But there’s a big problem with Interpol, and I am finding it difficult to avoid discussing it. Paul Banks has an amazing voice: declamatory, unique and able to hold its own against some of the most charismatic music in recent memory. That said, I’ll be damned if I can think of a worse lyricist in rock and roll. Am I including meatballs like the Hot Topic stockboys in Good Charlotte or Fast Freddy Durst in that statement? I’d rather not. But I think I could.
Banks’ pipes function as a secret weapon for Interpol: an instrument that adds extra texture to these darkly beautiful songs. But, if anything, his lyrics have gotten worse since Bright Lights, and that record had a few wince-inducing turds which will be omitted from this review simply because 1) I’m reviewing Antics and 2) I’m afraid to see what they’ll look like in print. What’s so disappointing about Banks failure to improve/movement in retrograde on Antics is that the last few years – and the anxiety, gloom and attendant introspection those two moods condition – were just crying out for an Interpol soundtrack. So, just in time for a frankly terrifying election, arriving as the leaves begin to turn and the nights grow a bit more forbidding, we get a bunch of songs about… what, exactly? Lyrically, Interpol continues to stick to indecipherably riddling mood-pieces (“A Time To Be So Small,” “Not Even Jail”) and kinda-sorta relationship songs (more on “Slow Hands’” devastating lyrics in a minute). It’s hard to tell what Banks is talking about much of the time on Antics, and that’s due in large part to his tendency to pick longer, fussier and less effective words (“I submit my incentive is romance,” from “Slow Hands,” is chased by “I watched the pole dance of the stars”) to express not terribly complicated sentiments. But when he’s clear, he’s worse. Witness, for example, the stunning inanity of “you make me want to pick up a guitar/and celebrate the myriad ways that I love you,” also from “Slow Hands.” Here’s a perfect single, pulsing with rough life, and smeared with lyrics that no one in his or her right mind would want to sing along with. Pair Banks’ penchant for reading his stage directions with a newfound and deeply unfortunate penchant for nautical themes – “Take You On A Cruise” has some wonderful elements, but Banks crooning “Oh my love, sailing to Norway” is not one of them – and you’ve got, well, something really lame.
Of course, if I can channel Stephen Malkmus for a moment, if I don’t always know what Banks means, I could also really give a fuck. Interpol continues to make music that’s jarringly good: dark, multifaceted and catchy enough to earn plenty of headphone rotations. Their lead singer’s got a great voice and an overused thesaurus, and I’m willing to overlook the latter because the former works so well. Antics is not a great record, and for the same reason I thought Bright Lights wasn’t: because, in a basic way, the songs just don’t quite seem smart or aware enough. That said, the gentlemen in black really do make good rock music. It’s hard to tell what “the pole dance of the stars” would look like, but it’s easy to know when an album rocks. Antics does. |