Interpol & ideas - Our Love to Admire Review

Wow. Not sure how I completely missed Interpol. Had a few people email me already that they’re big fans of the band.

At first blush, what’s not to like? Lead singer Paul Banks sounds like Brendan Flowers of the Killers (or perhaps the other way around). A lead guitarist in Daniel Kessler that can do the big, outdoor, wind chime guitar like the Edge. Very atmospheric are Interpol, and the music has ideas.

If Velvet Revolver are like the ex-high school jock showing up at a reunion bald and fat, Interpol seem to be more like band geeks. Clearly a super creative band with loads of ideas. Only a few weeks into the blog, I can say I now understand how certain bands become critical darlings. And I also understand how disconnected, and therefore unreliable, music critics are to the common man. The longer you “listen for a living” the more my sense is you would gravitate to the super creative, idea based, even odd end of the music spectrum. Listening to bland music makes you thirsty for just the sort of thing Interpol dish out in spades.

And it starts right from the first track on “Pioneer to the Falls” on the Our Love to Admire record. “Pioneer to the Falls” has a Donnie Darko vibe to it. Super creative, cool, and a little bit creepy. Like James mixed with Chris Isaac or something. It sounds like the cemetery, probably because of haunting and plodding lyrics like “I will pray that the soul can take three stowaways.”
Interpol work in lots of different sounds including what sounds so much like a car horn undercurrent that I was actually driving this week and swerved over to the side of the road because I thought the car behind me was going to hit me. Not knowing a lot about these guys and their background, that’s a general theme to the record. Interpol sound scary. The music and the mood on Our Love to Admire are haunting. If you want to decide if you’ll like these guys buy “Pioneer to the Falls” and listen to the 2:30 to 3:30 section of the nearly six minute song. I find pure majesty in there with all the changes and the effect. Interpol’s music is so full bodied I want to put it in a decanter. It’s an active listening experience for sure. To listen to the Interpol record gives you almost the same trippy feeling a great film can give you leaving the theater where you sort of feel outside your body –confused about what’s real and what’s not.

First and foremost, Our Love to Admire is an album. And what I mean by that is there aren’t any songs you want to skip over, it’s all good. The one liner on Interpol for me would be “sounds like music you’d expect cool people to have playing in the background of their house while entertaining.” The disc seems to be mostly composed of environmental music. The tempo is too slow on most of the tracks for anything to really feel like a single. If someone called me to ask what song to buy I wouldn’t even know how to answer that. I’d say buy the record because it’s good. And in the digital music world it’s pretty wonderful to find an album again.

Sure there are plenty of memorable parts to Our Love to Admire. If I had to pick singles I’d probably go “Rest My Chemistry,” and “No I in Threesome.” But I think “Pioneer to the Falls” is the defining track for a new Interpol listener. If you like that one, buy the album. If you don’t like that one, you probably won’t like the record. I guess it’s not a bad approach to have your first track act as bouncer in a way.

I’ve said before what I look for in music is ideas. Ideas are the ingredients necessary to make the music video in your head. The words, the riffs, and the way it feels. To that end Interpol have delivered a Crayola 64-pack (with the built in sharpener) on Our Love to Admire. The music is Broadway big. I’m a fan. But I encourage you to sit with it.

“No I in Threesome” has a nice spiral of a lyric, “maybe it’s time we gave something else a try” starting with a moody U2 spotlight vibe and building into something dare I say poppy - “you feel the sweet breath of time” later on. “No I in Threesome” is really many songs in one layered to a build. Death Cab for Cutie fans will feel at home here.

“Mammoth” is a great upward spiral of a song, with a great rubber band guitar to it. But despite the killer title it’s not a ready-made single. It’s just great to have playing in the background with the layered guitar and plodding drum beat.

“Rest my Chemistry” is the stuff of singles with a great guitar lead. The music stalks it’s prey, and moves about with a clip a bit higher RPM than the rest of the record.

There are many cocktail napkin worthy lyrics on the record including “I made you, and now I take you back,” “How are things on the West Coast,” “spare me the suspense” and “three kinds of yes” are just a few sing-along lines. Interpol do HEADLINE rock. Copy writers can find something to tap their foot to here.

I guess you could say most of the stuff on Our Love to Admire sounds the same. But I’m starting to wonder if that’s a criticism or a compliment in an age where albums are an endangered species. In the case of Interpol’s new one, it’s a good thing because it might sounds the same but it sounds real, real nice.

Love to Admire is music, but it’s also a mood. Even Sam Fogarino’s drums usually sound more like heartbeats here. Morphine marching band rock is how I would describe Interpol. So I went from having no ideas (Velvet Revolver) to possibly too many with Interpol. And that was music to my starving ears.