INTERPOL

Interpol

[Matador]

Interpol’s songs aren’t set in the real world—where people smile and go grocery shopping and wear colors other than black—but rather a swank, anxious underworld, where singer Paul Banks dresses to the nines and sips drinks with spooky lovers and personal demons. The New York City foursome recorded its fourth album just before parting ways with Capitol Records and bassist Carlos D.
Those changes will register later, but here Interpol slinks and slithers much as it always has. These are roomy, gloomy post-punk songs—atmospheric dispatches from U2’s evil twin. The album features more synths and strings than past efforts, but it’s built around a familiar core of sounds: nervous beats, elegant bass and guitars that ring like sirens and buzz like swarms of bees. Banks, meanwhile, puts some warble behind his baritone. On such songs as “Barricade,” all about uncertainty and disconnectedness, he makes one thing clear: No one does cool and uneasy quite like Interpol. –Kenneth Partridge

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