interpol-ourlovetoadmire music reviews Virgin Media
New York’s best-dressed band prepare for the big time on broodingly epic third album
Sharply dressed NYC quartet Interpol have always sounded big - without being a big band. Since breaking through in 2002, they’ve delivered two excellent albums’ worth of Joy Division-tinged post punk. Alongside a killer rhythm section driving icy guitars and haughty vocals, a mysterious theatricality always, however, lent the band a unique gravitas. This time around, after the claustrophobic noise of debut Turn On The Bright Lights and the broader pop canvas of Antics, an ambitious Interpol have gone for the stadium-filling jugular.
Our Love To Admire sounds electrifyingly immense. As brooding and glacial as always, Interpol incorporate funereal keyboards and brass to bolster soundscapes while producer Rich Costey (Muse) has brought expansiveness and bite to each track. Majestic opener Pioneer To The Falls is a chiming, cinematic chiller, sarcastic single The Heinrich Maneuver is brutal and pounding while the rueful Rest My Chemistry is almost soul-y, all underpinned by Paul Banks’ dislocated tales of sex and regret. Album closers Wrecking Ball and The Lighthouse cause a final shift: confident, experimental laments that see Interpol at their most symphonic. This magnificent epic of an album should ensure epic status will soon be theirs.
More to try:
Interpol: Antics
The National: Boxer
The Chameleons: Script Of The Bridge
Arcade Fire: Funeral
Joy Division: Closer
