Interpol: The Other Side of Make-Believe Album Review
Interpol: The Other Side of Make-Believe Album Review He is Paul Banks, the Voice of Interpol, a character he has embodied with increasing panache. I have to imagine a lyricist as self-aware and witty as Banks has read the tempered praise that has followed everything the band has done since 2007’s Our Love to Admire, and within the first couplet of The Other Side of Make-Believe, he has flexed mastery of this craft: “Still in shape, my methods refined,” he croons on “Toni,” a lyric that absolutely knows it’s going to included in just about every single review of their seventh album to speak to Interpol’s refreshed outlook and its modest success. More important is the actual first line of The Other Side of Make-Believe: “Flame down the Pacific Highway. , like a massive cruise ship, only a few minor shifts in coordinates can eventually send them off course. “Toni” is the heretofore-inconceivable “Interpol California song,” swapping ambient synth washes for a plinking piano, slacking the eighth-note grid just the tiniest bit, allowing Banks’ voice to relax into a world-weary but satisfied tone. Even if the optimistic bent of The Other Side of Make-Believe is more implied than literal, “Toni” lets in enough sunshine and seabreeze for “Fables” to follow with what Banks calls Interpol’s first “summer jam.”
Veröffentlicht : Vor 3 Jahren durch Black Midi, Beabadoobee, Condé Nast, Ja Rule, Westside Gunn, Two Shell, Tatsuro Yamashita, Brent Faiyaz, MISZCZYK, Burna Boy, Viagra Boys, Alice in Chains, By Ian Cohen in Politics
After 25 years of fronting one of rock’s most recognizable brands, Paul Banks is not merely the vocalist for Interpol. He is Paul Banks, the Voice of Interpol, a character he has embodied with increasing panache. Maybe that’s always been the case, but especially since Interpol’s return to Matador cemented their status as an A-list cult band, Banks has slyly played on the reality that every one of their albums will be taken by a locked-in audience as a referendum on Interpol. I have to imagine a lyricist as self-aware and witty as Banks has read the tempered praise that has followed everything the band has done since 2007’s Our Love to Admire, and within the first couplet of The Other Side of Make-Believe, he has flexed mastery of this craft: “Still in shape, my methods refined,” he croons on “Toni,” a lyric that absolutely knows it’s going to included in just about every single review of their seventh album to speak to Interpol’s refreshed outlook and its modest success.
More important is the actual first line of The Other Side of Make-Believe: “Flame down the Pacific Highway.” Though nearly every one of their peers who was likewise deemed a quintessential New York rock artist in the 2000s has made their way to the West Coast, the concept of Interpol doing the same triggered some kind of mental 404 error. If not slumming in pornographic subways with shady butchers and catatonic sex toy love-joy divers, what would Paul Banks really be? “On the streets of Cozumel/Where the faces glow/I would gladly give my life to be there,” he replies on “Gran Hotel.” Granted, Interpol has achieved a godlike status in Mexico, but the change in disposition as well as geography is revolutionary for a band who’d otherwise only been capable of incremental sonic change.
Yet, like a massive cruise ship, only a few minor shifts in coordinates can eventually send them off course. “Toni” is the heretofore-inconceivable “Interpol California song,” swapping ambient synth washes for a plinking piano, slacking the eighth-note grid just the tiniest bit, allowing Banks’ voice to relax into a world-weary but satisfied tone. Even if the optimistic bent of The Other Side of Make-Believe is more implied than literal, “Toni” lets in enough sunshine and seabreeze for “Fables” to follow with what Banks calls Interpol’s first “summer jam.” I doubt they intended “Fables” to do battle for Hot 97 supremacy against Bad Bunny or Doja Cat, or even a pop song playing against type a la “Friday I’m in Love.” Nonetheless, it does tease out some of the influences that had been suppressed within Banks’ main gig: a love of boomin’ system hip-hop and the most memorable melody he’s penned in ages. Ironically, it sounds more in line with the kind of festival-topping indie rock that Dave Fridmann helped steward before he all but tanked the production of 2018’s Marauder.
Themen: Interpol