23. Interpol
Turn On The Bright Lights [Matador, 2002]
While the music of Interpol may always be inextricably tied to comparisons to Joy Division – most of which doing them little favor, it must be added too – there is no doubting that Turn On The Bright Lights managed to tap straight into a synecdoche for their hometown New York in such a prescient manner that few other bands are capable of replicating. The ruinous slo-mo grandeur of “NYC”, with Paul Banks singing about being “sick of spending these lonely nights, training myself not to care”, captures the very essence of the city that has often inspired such ambivalent feelings and disconnect, while the band prop up the album’s s shadowy ambience with a suite of the howling guitars, pitched as a tightwire act and seemingly lifted right out of the post-punk playbook – indeed, the edgy verve and relentless musicianship on display throughout Turn On The Bright Lights is the surest argument that Interpol are more than the sum of their familiar influences. Elsewhere, a sense of altered moods permeates “Obstacle 2” and “Leif Erickson” – again, the guitars shaking off the somnolence of Banks’ haunted vocals – while “Say Hello to the Angels” comes across as a violent repudiation of their music undeserved rep of being, well, mere Joy Division regurgitations.
Turn On The Bright Lights [Matador, 2002]
While the music of Interpol may always be inextricably tied to comparisons to Joy Division – most of which doing them little favor, it must be added too – there is no doubting that Turn On The Bright Lights managed to tap straight into a synecdoche for their hometown New York in such a prescient manner that few other bands are capable of replicating. The ruinous slo-mo grandeur of “NYC”, with Paul Banks singing about being “sick of spending these lonely nights, training myself not to care”, captures the very essence of the city that has often inspired such ambivalent feelings and disconnect, while the band prop up the album’s s shadowy ambience with a suite of the howling guitars, pitched as a tightwire act and seemingly lifted right out of the post-punk playbook – indeed, the edgy verve and relentless musicianship on display throughout Turn On The Bright Lights is the surest argument that Interpol are more than the sum of their familiar influences. Elsewhere, a sense of altered moods permeates “Obstacle 2” and “Leif Erickson” – again, the guitars shaking off the somnolence of Banks’ haunted vocals – while “Say Hello to the Angels” comes across as a violent repudiation of their music undeserved rep of being, well, mere Joy Division regurgitations.
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