Album Review: Interpol - El Pintor

First single All The Rage Back Home brings the new Interpol clearly into focus. A combination of the best bits of Antics (the pop riff, Paul Banks’ brooding vocals) with the new lush sound of 2010’s self-titled record, the track kicks off slow and rich, before breaking into the jangly upbeat chorus. The pace is set; the band, as it stands without founding bassist Carlos Dengler, is here. Banks has taken over bass duties and he struts his stuff with aplomb. But it’s not much different to the Interpol of old.

And the album simply continues on in that vein. Their alt-rock pop with grit might not appeal to all – people might still find Banks’ voice wearying, a drain on their will to keep listening to music, but that miserableness (take My Blue Supreme or Everything Is Wrong) is part and parcel of what Interpol are. They don’t shy away from it. But at the end of it all nothing really sticks. Repeated listens don’t give up a standout track. In fact, all the songs tend to blend and warp into an amorphous mass of slow builds, anguished catch cries and layered vocals.

All the songs are equally emotional, some are fun, some brood, jittering along with complex melodic guitar work from Daniel Kessler, but none come up to the high points of their earlier work. It just feels a little dry, a little done, a little too easy. This is far from the reinvigoration some Interpol fans were looking for.