Interpol inters pretense, exhumes beauty
By BJ STREW
Scene Music Critic
If Allen Ginsberg was still here today, he'd probably characterize the current state of music with the following quote, "I saw the best bands of my generation destroyed by business. Some give up, some sell out, but some escape corporate claws." Somehow, out of the sinister TRL-Dave Matthews-John Mayer-etc. hegemonic vacuum, good bands continue to fight the good fight and good music continues to crawl out of the MTVoid.
And another just crawled out. Fans of Joy Division and The Smiths, rejoice! Ditto for The Psychedelic Furs, ditto for The Cure— even The Pixies. Though rectors or law students might recall them from their salad days, this music precedes the tastes of your average undergrads, but it's not inaccessible to them. Interpol exhibits its debt to the post-punk forebears in their debut Turn on the Bright Lights while managing to preserve its own unique sound.
This balancing act boasts a set of ex-NYU students, clad in Exeter-meets-Goth garb, all of whom shared dorms or time abroad or classes and, presumably, a passion for Joy Division. A stroke of luck brought them together, but they don't owe their success to chance. Interpol sweated to get here, unlike their local contemporaries, the "garage revival" inventions of impetuous A&R marketing machinery. Not until they cut their teeth in Europe did the Matador brass sign them.
Matador didn't mind that, by the band's own admission, the song titles on Turn on the Bright Lights are pretty arbitrary and insignificant, maybe even a little absurdist. As any listener quickly learns, it is the songs themselves that matter. These lyrics brim over with authentic wit and emotion, not the overweening bromides that seem all the rage today. And Paul Banks' vocals, channeling John Cale and Ian Curtis, lend them a patina of melancholy that makes the clever verses all the more poignant.
This patina coats every track and blends flawlessly with lilting guitar work and serrated minor-chord melodies. Kicking off with "Untitled," a lone guitar trembles and echoes for a minute before the drums thump and the bass rolls, and finally, vocals join with brooding, plaintive energy. Reprised from a recent three-song EP, "PDA" and "NYC" share more than three-letter titles: with their abstruse lyrics and understated riffs, throwbacks to both The Pixies and The Smiths, they are arguably the standouts here.
Topping it off, the last track, "Leif Erikson," closes with laconic lyrics sailing alongside relentless, deliberate percussion. By the end, Turn on the Bright Lights has proved itself an astonishing Gestalt that's repetitive without being monotonous. Its elegiac tenor lingers long after listening, as its sparse beauty avoids the lyrical paucity of "math rock."
Interpol's music might be described as volatile languor; it is messianic post-punk wizardry sans Strokes-style "garage revival" pretense, with the concomitant denim, sullen air and impeccably tousled hairdos. Turn on the Bright Lights inaugurates a band undeniably worthy of its spiraling publicity, one that should survive and flourish well beyond the media's brief love affair. Believe the hype: the New York music scene is alive, Interpol is here and the emotion is real.
Contact BJ Strew at strew.1@nd.edu
All Scene Stories for Tuesday, February 11, 2003
