Interpol – Our Love To Admire

The album sleeve for Our Love to Admire depicts a stricken deer, caught by two hunting lions, trapped in its final moments of life before jaws clamp round its neck. The animals look fake, as does the background image – stuffed, long since dead, set in a pose of death and destruction. Bands on major record labels at times probably feel like those stricken animals, driven to the point of terror by those who make the decisions in their lives. This is Interpol’s first release on Capitol (released by Parlophone in the UK), since their contract with the indie Matador expired after two fine albums. Rather than allowing their music to change to fit their new situation, they have produced an album that builds significantly on their past, to great effect.

Our Love To Admire falls somewhere between Turn On The Brights Lights and Antics. It matches the bleak, wintery melodies of their debut with the sonic rushes of their follow-up. One thing Interpol seem to be able to really well, much better than their peers, is structure a song, allowing their music to naturally build. Evil from Antics is a fine example of this – it doesn’t just possess a wonderfully creepy video (puppet with tongues = wrong) but a huge chorus, soaring as one of the best alternative pop songs of recent years. They build on this with their third album, matching sonic experimentation with some excellently constructed songs.

Album opener Pioneer to the Falls is simple and majestic, building layer upon layer before everything is stripped down for the climax. Following a similar trend to their last two releases, starting the album with such a ponderous piece may seem conceited, but it works well, a good introduction for what lies ahead. The production is also improved, Rich Costey adding much to the texture of the music, as does the inclusion of keyboards and piano, particularly on the outstanding No I in Threesome, the bridge from verse to chorus giving a spirited lift to the track.

Single The Heinrich Maneuver is also superb – the guitar here is full bodied, choppy but aching with life, matched to a chorus of much magnitude where Paul Banks’ voice has never sounded better. It marks a highpoint, something the rest of the album struggles to emulate. Mammoth is interesting, packed with intricate guitar lines, whilst Who Do You Think ups the tempo again, with a clipped percussive beat and keyboards filling out the sound. And it ends similar to how it begins, The Lighthouse marking a slow, reflective end, almost a dirge of guitars and very little else other than Banks’ vocal. It is hard to find fault with this album, taking all the best elements of their first two and adding in much that is new. It shows a band doing very much their own thing, major label or not.

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Links
Interpol [official site] [myspace]