Once suffocated by their early success, members of New York indie rocker Interpol insist the shackles are off with a new record that sees them looking forward rather than casting furtive glances in the rear-view mirror.
After touching the hearts of a grieving city following the 2001 terror attacks with game-changing debut album Turn on the Bright Lights, Interpol has largely struggled to replicate that post-punk exuberance since follow-up Antics.
But with their tension-filled sixth album Marauder, the New York nihilists finally look to have broken free of the past.
“We’re evolving, we’re still moving forward,” guitarist Daniel Kessler told AFP in an interview before a rare Tokyo performance.
“Ultimately the reason why we’re still a band now is because Marauder is as good as anything we’ve done.”
Known for their dark, guitar-stabbing sound, Interpol brought panache to a hedonistic New York music scene that included the likes of The Strokes and Yeah Yeah Yeahs, shunning tight jeans and tatty Converse sneakers for dark suits and silk ties.
And 16 years after the release of Bright Lights, the brooding rockers are virtually the last men standing.
“Time has flown by,” sighed drummer Sam Fogarino. “I still think about me and Daniel sharing a hotel room after getting out of a tiny van in England back in the day.
“On the one hand that doesn’t seem that long ago,” he added. “But on the other hand I have two kids now and I’m not sharing a hotel room with anybody!”
Mercury Rev and Flaming Lips producer Dave Fridmann brings a fresh energy, and plenty of reverb, to Interpol’s latest work.
Singles “The Rover” and “Number 10” rock out as Kessler’s spiky guitar riffs race with Fogarino’s galloping drums, while the catchy “Flight of Fancy” sounds like The Killers on Valium.
In the doleful album-closer “It Probably Matters”, singer Paul Banks laments past failures, his voice trembling as he confesses: “I didn’t have the grace or the brains.”
As relationships within the band fractured, Interpol were hit by bassist Carlos Dengler’s acrimonious departure in 2010 after he bizarrely blamed Brit-rockers Coldplay for turning him off music.
“It was a shame we lost a friend,” said Fogarino. “It was a big transition on a personal and emotional level.
“I’ll cry about it at home, but not in a rehearsal space—there’s music to write.”
