Teach me to meet my desires with some grace...

August 30, 2010 6:03 PM

Interpol have a new, self-titled album coming out September 7 (the 13th in the UK). Hey, guess what! It sounds like Interpol, so this is the kind of thing you will like, if you like this kind of thing. "Lights" (and here in HD) already has me imagining doing a thousand-yard stare out of a bus window on a cold, late November night. The second video, "Barricade" is here (and here in HD).
posted by jackrational (43 comments total)

"Lights" is good, I like the end bit the most and will gladly listen to it on repeat for hours. But "Barricade" is far too Our Love To Admire which was a rubbish album and I hope the rest of the new record doesn't turn out as bad because I don't need that shit in my life right now, I just don't! Dead Rising 2: Case Zero has been delayed and I can't get a Galaxy S until like mid-September! And oh, the new Interpol record is crap! Pass me the time machine and a bunch of wire coat hangers! Oh god! *sobs*
posted by turgid dahlia at 6:20 PM on August 30, 2010

Hey, guess what! It sounds like Interpol

I like your brand of honesty, but I think you're failing to sell the post. I get that people complain when their favorite band changes too much, but what of the band that never changes? Which is this album's Evil?
posted by filthy light thief at 6:21 PM on August 30, 2010 [1 favorite]

turgid dahlia: I'll be deeply disappointed too - heading into fall, a solid Interpol album would be very satisfying.

filthy light thief: Your point is well taken... I guess my feeling is that for every band that changes, and grows, and invites their fans along for the rewarding experience, there are some bands that you'd be really happy to get another potent dose of their aesthetic. And "Evil" is a a terrific track, but "Not Even Jail" is probably my favorite on Antics. Hard to say yet what will be the standout on the new album, but I'd say "Lights" is promising.
posted by jackrational at 6:32 PM on August 30, 2010 [1 favorite]

This video contains content from Vevo, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds.

I always suspected turgid dahlia was behind seven proxies...
posted by GeckoDundee at 6:41 PM on August 30, 2010

...but what of the band that never changes ... its underwear?
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:47 PM on August 30, 2010 [1 favorite]

It was sad when the singer killed himself back in early 80's, but, hey, we got New Order.
posted by nimmpau at 6:48 PM on August 30, 2010 [5 favorites]

not changing underwear is evil. not even jail is enough punishment for those bands.
posted by jackrational at 6:50 PM on August 30, 2010

You might want to consider using the standard youtube URLs and not the shortened youtu.be ones because the latter don't work with the Metafilter in-page youtube player.
posted by Rhomboid at 6:59 PM on August 30, 2010

MetaFilter: this is the kind of thing you will like, if you like this kind of thing.
posted by not_on_display at 7:15 PM on August 30, 2010 [3 favorites]

I got really excited for their second disc. I bought it on the day it came out. I was in South Dakota and about 300 miles from my CD player. I finally got home, put it on and thought, meh. Then like two weeks later they issued another CD with 2 or 4 extra tracks, so since I loved the first disc so damn much I ran out and bought it. Listened to these tracks that should have been on there in the first place and thought, meh.

I don't know how many discs they have now. And I could hardly care (I do a little). There are only so many times I'll kick at that football.

I think there would need to be a Palpal decree saying this disc is as good as the first for me to even consider it. If anyone says it's better then I am skipping as well. When the standards are that high it'd never live up.

Also, Interpol shouldn't really be compared to Joy Division. The music isn't as good and the singing isn't either.
posted by cjorgensen at 7:19 PM on August 30, 2010 [1 favorite]

The vids for "lights" and "barricade" are loaded with visual splendors, but sadly, my enthusiasm for the new songs themselves immediately began to wane. Is it just me or are these tracks terribly bland? Perhaps it's a little soon to jump to conclusions, but I'm already thinking of retiring any high hopes for this album...
posted by afabulousbeing at 7:22 PM on August 30, 2010

Turn on the trite lights.
posted by orville sash at 7:33 PM on August 30, 2010 [1 favorite]

I loved Turn On the Bright Lights, thought Antics was a decent retread but whatever plenty of bands I like sound the same on album after album. Then I heard this band She Wants Revenge and could not get over how great their Interpol parody was. Then when I heard Our Love to Admire I could not get over how great their She Wants Revenge parody was.

Not much bodes well for this new album. The bassist left the band and he was one of the reasons I loved TOBL. Lights is a boring 4 minute intro to an okay 30 seconds to a fade out. Barricade at least tries to do something but it's still pretty shitty.

I guess I'm just disappointed because I was blown away by them live right before Antics came out. I'm sure my assumption that they were going to be terribly boring helped, but still!
posted by crashlanding at 7:37 PM on August 30, 2010

Turn on the Bright Lights is such a fantastic album. Played that one into the dirt. I snipped off tracks and scattered them into well-received mixes ("he severed segments; secretly, you liked that") and then Antics came out and I couldn't find anything on it I wanted anyone else to hear. And aside from "No I In Threesome," the third album leaves me completely cold.

And, yeah, they do sound a lot like Joy Division, at least on the first album, except for the time they sound like The Smiths. Tooling around, listening to a mix I had put "This Charming Man," then, immediately after, "Say Hello the Angels," I turned to my friend and begin singing the the lyrics to the former over the recognizably faster latter. (Try it. It's not a perfect fit, unlike that Emily Dickinson/"Yellow Rose of Texas" bit, but it's close.)She insisted on playing it again and doing it herself the second time around. This, despite us having gone to two Interpol concerts.

The Julian Plenti side project (does a solo work count as a side project?) is not bad but it isn't as if one would not immediately say, "Oh, sounds just like Interpol. What have they been up to?"
posted by adipocere at 7:40 PM on August 30, 2010 [1 favorite]

I've had the album for a few days, Turn on the Bright Lights dominated two winters and a summer of mine while the next two albums didn't do anything for me. So Far Interpol feels like the album I would have preferred to be the follow-up.
posted by Doug Stewart at 8:04 PM on August 30, 2010

The bassist left the band

Oh well then forget about it.
posted by padraigin at 8:09 PM on August 30, 2010

A plane-crash right before the release of "Our Love To Admire" would have been great PR, and solidified their place as a pretty good band.
posted by bardic at 8:20 PM on August 30, 2010

I saw them in concert. They were terrible. They were just going through the motions.
posted by cman at 8:38 PM on August 30, 2010

Turn on the Bright Lights shaped my taste in music.
I heard it for the first time when I was in seventh grade. I quickly turned into "that kid who listens to really sad music all the time." My French teacher saw that I had their CD once before class and she ended up turning me on to Joy Division. I ended up volunteering for her at my middle school for a summer program before going to high school, and to thank me her husband burned me a whole stack of awesome music. There was:

- Heart and Soul (The Joy Division Box Set)
- Orchestre Rouge's discography
- Indochine's discography
- Some album by Siglo XX
- A bunch of other music in the same vein.

He also stuck a mis that I listened to nonstop for the next year called "Mix for Young People like Myself". The whole stack basically kept me busy for the next year.

I think I'm going to go try and find that stack of CDs. I wonder how Madame Tessier and her husband are doing now.

Oh yeah, and I lost faith in Interpol after Antics. I was too busy with all the cool 80s music her husband gave me.
posted by azarbayejani at 8:41 PM on August 30, 2010 [2 favorites]

Oh and the Chameleons!! I totally forgot they showed me those guys.
posted by azarbayejani at 8:43 PM on August 30, 2010 [1 favorite]

And, yeah, they do sound a lot like Joy Division,

Well, except for minor details like Joy Division being, you know, good. This is more like Lite Division.

Pretty videos, though.
posted by Forktine at 8:53 PM on August 30, 2010 [1 favorite]

Interpol's put a fair distance between themselves and Joy Division by now. On the other hand, these new singles aren't very good. Well, "Lights" is sort of interesting maybe, but "Barricades" is a really really bland pop song, isn't it? Meanwhile, as much as Turn On The Bright Lights sounds like Joy Division goes to a focus group, it's still a pretty good record.
posted by furiousthought at 9:12 PM on August 30, 2010

Their price for the ltd edition vinyl on the web site is ridiculous. Pick it up at your local record store without the poster for about half that.
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 9:34 PM on August 30, 2010

adipocere: “And, yeah, they do sound a lot like Joy Division, at least on the first album...”

No, my friend. Not at all. To start with, Joy Division had a fucking drummer.
posted by koeselitz at 10:35 PM on August 30, 2010 [4 favorites]

The whole comparison to Joy Division was sloppy college-rock journalism to begin with, since "like Joy Division" really just meant moody without being potentially hyper, a la the "emo" tag.

Which sucks, because both bands deserve better. My previous snark aside, I really liked Interpol's first two albums. They just don't seem to have enough to say or show to justify continued existence. I know I've listened to "Our Love to Admire" more than once, I just can't tell you a single thing about it. Totally forgettable.
posted by bardic at 11:25 PM on August 30, 2010 [1 favorite]

"This video is not available in your country."
Thank god for that.
posted by _Lasar at 3:58 AM on August 31, 2010

The whole comparison to Joy Division was sloppy college-rock journalism to begin with, since "like Joy Division" really just meant moody without being potentially hyper, a la the "emo" tag.

Except for the fact that Interpol sound a lot like Joy Division. But, point taken.
posted by josher71 at 5:35 AM on August 31, 2010

It was sad when the singer killed himself back in early 80's, but, hey, we got New Order.

Cute, but no.

The "Paul Banks from Interpol sings just like Ian Curtis" meme is wholly inaccurate.

"Paul Banks from Interpol is channeling Richard Butler from the Psychedelic Furs", however, is correct.
posted by tantrumthecat at 5:37 AM on August 31, 2010

This division lacks joy.
posted by rusty at 5:55 AM on August 31, 2010

I'm listening to Lights right now and it just doesn't sound at all like Joy Division. Not a bit.

I reckon a lot of the Joy Division comparisons are bullshit. (loads of bands in the last 5 years have been compared by soem journo to Joy Division.
posted by mary8nne at 6:02 AM on August 31, 2010

It was sad when the singer killed himself back in early 80's, but, hey, we got New Order.

101 THINGS TO WHICH YOU CAN COMPARE INTERPOL BESIDES JOY DIVISION

To me, the new album sounds straight up like Kitchens of Distinction.
posted by mrgrimm at 8:19 AM on August 31, 2010 [1 favorite]

I'm willing to concede I might be wrong. However, I do think Obstacle 1 sounds like Joy Division. That being said, I like Interpol.
posted by josher71 at 8:23 AM on August 31, 2010

Heard mention of, but never listened to Interpol until now.

I am at a slight loss to understand how they're an 'American' band if both of their front men are British. But, hey, that might just be a New York thing.

Is this what the cool kids are listening to these days? I'm gob-smacked, because, as so many people have indicated, with the Ian Curtis snark, Interpol sounds like last generation's (mine) hipster music.

A lot of Interpol's stuff, sounds closer to the neo-psychedelic stuff of the mid-90's rather than the proto-Punk of Joy Division.

Prof. Champa would say that Interpol is part of a project that began with Joy Division.
posted by vhsiv at 8:56 AM on August 31, 2010

I think Our Love to Admire was so painfully terrible it will take some doing to come back from it. I mean, can you imagine if that steaming turd was their first album? They'd be playing the Holiday Inn.

Not to mince words or anything.
posted by Kafkaesque at 11:46 AM on August 31, 2010

That sounded absolutely nothing like Joy Division. It sounds more like R.E.M.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 12:06 PM on August 31, 2010

(Whom, I might add, were not on the 101 list)
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 12:07 PM on August 31, 2010

Oh, man, I had totally and completely forgotten about Kitchens of Distinction.

That really is a more apt comparison to Interpol's current sound. Though, again, Kitchens of Distinction's songs are much better.
posted by furiousthought at 12:18 PM on August 31, 2010

n.b. It's only August 31 and half of the Metafilter users will have illicit copies.

So much for everybody's favorite band...
posted by vhsiv at 12:33 PM on August 31, 2010

Oh man how awesome is Kitchens Of Distinction? Great thread just for finding out about them and Orchestra Rouge!
posted by turgid dahlia at 3:41 AM on September 2, 2010

Also I want to report that this new Interpol album is actually quite good, easily better than Antics or Our Love To Admire.
posted by turgid dahlia at 4:23 AM on September 2, 2010

I have no feelings about Interpol, but count me as someone who thinks Joy Division, much like the Doors, is one of the most overrated bands ever.

runs and hides
posted by The ____ of Justice at 1:18 AM on September 3, 2010

I want to report that this new Interpol album is actually quite good, easily better than Antics or Our Love To Admire.

Hm. I didn't give OLTA much of a chance, so it wouldn't be hard to top that, but I really like Antics. This new one's no Antics, imo.

Now everybody's sounding like Kitchens of Distinction to me.

Menomena - Dirty Cartoons

Much more exciting (to me) than Interpol's new album is the imminent Phosphene Dream from The Black Angels. Cool (looking) site too.
posted by mrgrimm at 11:43 AM on September 3, 2010

"this is still lukewarm Interpol, beginner's stuff from a band that has weathered enough moons to know better. That it is an improvement over Our Love to Admire, now that I think about it, was a wriggling Given, a throbbing Certainty; but it's telling that the strongest compliment I can give this eponymous step-in-the-right-direction is that it is a step in the right direction."

- Tiny Mix Tapes

"For many this will be the immensely satisfying record that will symbolize the moment at which Interpol finally transitioned their original indie aesthetic into a gloriously polished major label sound (ironically after they’d been dropped by Parlophone)."

- David Hayter

"... the majority of Interpol is more dull than hypnotic: It tries to assemble skyscrapers, but ends up muddling around without a strong foundation. Though just ten tracks long, it can't muster a big finish, petering out with a pair of mid-tempo snoozers. When artists self-title albums, it's often a statement of purpose or of redefinition, but that's not the case here. Interpol sounds both strangely distant and overly familiar, like a band struggling to remember who they are."

- Spin
posted by mrgrimm at 11:40 AM on September 8, 2010