INTERPOL - Our Love To Admire Review

The most surprising thing about Our Love To Admire, once you're over the initial shocks of a) that willfully non-Interpolesque cover art and b) Carlos D's new varmint-chewing facial hair, is the fact that for the first time the band have cracked open the shades long enough to allow a few rays of light to penetrate the ever-gloomy world which they inhabit....full text You thought you had Interpol pegged, didn’t you. Yeah, us too. They probably weren’t far off the mark either, the way they’d nailed themselves up on the post-punk crucifix (still well-dressed, mind – always well dressed), wherein they thrashed through the motions of toil and regret for all to see. They sat behind the blacked-out windows of a cruising juggernaut of emotional turmoil and introverted tension, every bold manoeuvre or sudden swerve so very clear to see, especially when we’re talking their solid but ultimately unexceptional sophomore, ‘Antics’....full text These are finicky musical times, and the flashes of countless indie darlings have burned out faster than you could clap your hands and say yeah. Give New York-based post-punk outfit Interpol credit, then, for consistently living up to expectations. Their sophomore effort, 2004's Antics, refused to slump, becoming a genuine chart-pleaser — yet they never sacrificed a lick of devotion to their occasionally droning take on Joy Division's dour legacy. The band took three and a half years to release their major-label debut (and their fixation has moved on to the Cure, circa Pornography), but they appear to have used every minute of that intervening period to meticulously craft their return....full text