Death Cab For Cutie's Ben Gibbard recently suggested that Interpol should have spent less time touring last year and more time writing the songs on "Antics," the group's second album.
That's hardly a surprising comment from Gibbard, who is known for lyrics that are witty, even precious. Death Cab For Cutie's music serves mainly to foreground Gibbard's poignant musings and catchy melodies. But Interpol is not that kind of band, and front man Paul Banks is not that kind of songwriter.
Anyone looking to Interpol's music for trenchant observations about the human psyche is barking up the wrong tree. The band's debut, 2002's "Turn On the Bright Lights," was a collection of brooding, angular rock songs that exuded effortless cool. But it contained some of the biggest lyrical head-scratchers since mid-'90s Beck. I doubt even Banks' bandmates knew what he was talking about when he sang lines like "Subway, she is a porno / Pavements, they are a mess."
On "Antics," too, it's Banks' delivery that makes lines like "Pretense is not what restricts me / It's the circles inside" seem like profound observations rather than pretense. The man could sing "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" and make it sound like a hipster anthem.
If Interpol's music were a car, it would be sleek, black and vaguely German. Like their first album, "Antics" is driven by angular guitars and studied nonchalance. The chorus to the single "Slow Hands" is the catchiest thing on the album, but it's only one volley in a succession of shiny, polished bullets of rock and roll.
They can do it fast, as on "Slow Hands," or they can do it slow, as on the gorgeous "Public Pervert." The only substantial change to the Interpol sound from the first record to the second is the addition, on a few tracks, of some driving, cinematic synth effects. These are used sparingly, but to great effect. The pulsing intro to "Not Even Jail" brings to mind the glossy sheen of the Killers' recent hit, "Somebody Told Me." There's a reason people like this stuff. It could make even the most jaded indie rocker bust a move.
One of the album's highlights comes when Banks nearly dispenses with lyrics altogether on the chorus of "Length of Love." Recourse to the lyric sheet reveals that what he's repeating over and over is "Complex salacious removal," but the refrain provides the band with the opportunity to layer vocals, strings and a melodic bass line to create a compelling variation on their sound. The song adds an element of the daring to the usual sinister ambiance, resulting in something like an indie-rock James Bond theme song.
Since Interpol is more about creating a sense of style than anything else, it can all start to sound a bit the same. Occasionally, as on "C'mere," the lack of a memorable hook makes an entire track seem superfluous -- and every song had better be essential when your album only has ten. But the worst that can be said of any track on "Antics" is that it's formulaic. Because the band departs so little from its signature sound, there are no real missteps.
And that observation begs the question: is Interpol capable of doing more? If they think they're experimenting by digitally manipulating the vocals and adding a bed of mumbled post-Structuralist criticism to the final track, "A Time to Be So Small," they need to get out more. What would happen if Interpol tried writing a real punk song, or an anthemic ballad?
Experimentation can produce lousy results, but also great ones. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs have only recorded about three ballads, but one of them, "Maps," has got to be their greatest song. Hot Hot Heat capped a very good pop-punk album, 2002's "Make Up the Breakdown," with a singular, brooding closer ("In Cairo") that made you wonder if there was more where that came from.
Interpol have now produced two carefully crafted albums of '80s-underground-inspired rock. Now it's their time to show us what else they're capable of doing.
