Our Love to Admire - Dark Publications

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Amazon.com
Our Love To Admire is at once unmistakably Interpol and undeniably new. The witty and perverse "No I In Threesome" is an upbeat ode to shaking up a staid relationship propelled by Carlos D's peerless bass melody while the tenderly observant "Pace Is the Trick" proves that the band are still the masters of the dramatic - check the painful pause right before the sinfully satisfying return of Sam's thundering drums and Daniel's ringing lead guitar. The band's impressively seductive evolution is obvious all over the record, but never more so than on tracks like "Mammoth," "Who Do You Think" and on the album's lyrical centerpiece, the ghostly "Rest My Chemistry." While Daniel is understandably proud of the song he cautions against reading too much autobiography into its lyrics. "We always leave the interpretation to the listener," he says. "I mean, you shouldn't watch a movie for the first time listening to the director's commentary!" Our Love to Admire closes with "The Lighthouse," a funereal dirge that is among the most unexpected and memorable songs ever recorded by the band. Almost entirely percussion-free, the song is constructed around Daniel's mournful guitar and Paul's sparten lyrics. Not only is it one of their finest moments to date, it provides the album's most goose-bump inducing moment, the very same reflex shivers that make Interpol live shows such an exhilarating experience. As the very last song the band recorded for the album it was, they say, the hardest to play. The hypnotic guitar part was played on a 50-year-old guitar that had toxins on the strings, providing Daniel with a blistering and painful sensation in his fingers. The band weren't even sure the track would make it out of the studio, but once they heard Paul's remarkable vocals they were floored. The song - and the album - doesn't so much end as it bleeds to a close with a long, echoey coda filled with feedback and strings. A fittingly dramatic end to a stunning and emotional journey. Interpol is back, every bit as good as before but charged with a new spirit, a new direction, a new label and, most of all, a new confidence.

Amazon.com
Moving up to a major label has hardly lifted Interpol's spirits. This is a good thing. Even with the twisted Wild Kingdom album cover and bassist Carlos Dengler's unexpected Wild West makeover, on its third studio album the black-clad New York quartet still sounds inflexibly menacing, grasping tighter than ever to its doomy post-punk influences and delving further into frontman Paul Banks's emotional unrest. Everything sounds a little bigger and brighter, sure, but at their core songs like "Rest My Chemistry" and "Wrecking Ball" are heroically sinister, goaded on by prickly riffs and slow-bleeding rhythms. The group briefly jumps to life on the buzzing "Heinrich Manouver" and exhibits an unexpected dash of humor on "No I in Threesome," but it's the closing "Lighthouse" that best defines the set--a late-night lament that simply steals away into the dark. --Aidin Vaziri

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More from Interpol

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The Black EP

Customer Reviews: Read 83 more reviews...

4 out of 5 stars

A FEW NEW DIRECTIONS, BUT STILL INTERPOL AT THEIR FINEST (4 stars) July 10, 2007
26 out of 30 found this review helpful

I have the joy in announcing the new Interpol album is as good as I hoped it would be. In fact it does exactly what it needs to do. It sounds like Interpol, it's got some great lyrics, and it timidly breaks into some new directions. Our Love To Admire is another step forward for the NYC band without abandoning the familiar waters in which they sail. I'll spare the Joy Division comparisons because after 3 records, that has gotten very old, and quite frankly it's a label not all that appropriate anymore. Sure, Paul Banks' voice still has the Ian Curtis gloominess about it, but musically I think Interpol have gotten more adventurous and playful on Our Love, and in some ways, much stronger for it. Again, this doesn't mean the band stray far from the formula, Our Love To Admire is a sweeping ode to relationships and the personal struggles that come with them.

The album starts off somewhat more experimental before settling in, but after a few listens, this start, particularly Pioneer of the Falls, might be one of the key moments of the entire disc. Nearly 6 minutes in length, Pioneer of the Falls sounds as if we are witnessing a funeral of sorts, with all kinds of subtle sonic rumblings going on. It's not over the top mind you, but it's enough to evoke a new and emotional starting point for the new material. A stunning start. The first single, The Heinrich Maneuver, is an up-tempo jab to an ex-love now residing on the opposite coast, it's fun and as accessible as Interpol can be. As always, Carlos D's commanding bass lines carry the single, and in many ways, anchor the whole of the record. More familiar footing can be found in, `No I in Threesome' which is about (obviously enough) someone trying resurrect a dying love affair with ways to spice things up. In it, Paul playfully sings, "maybe it's time we give something new a try". The result, both sonically and lyrically, is a relentless and interesting view of love and how certain people may handle the harder times. Mammoth, the album's dynamic fifth track, attacks the ears with Daniel Kessler's simple, repeated guitar riffs that fans may feel echo early work like C'Mere or PDA (not a bad thing at all). More ambient numbers are also present as well. The eerie, The Lighthouse, has Bank's crooning in a way that it almost turns into spoken word, it's strange and affecting.

The subtleness of Interpol's maturation and evolution as a band is more obvious in tracks like, Who Do You Think, Pace Is the Trick, and Rest My Chemistry. All have an underlining new spirit and fervor reserved for bands making drastic changes to what they do best. Not the case here, Interpol have employed these changes with the expected precision we've come to admire from them. And even with all the expected underpinnings, the band has grown perfectly into what they do. Fully realized, Our Love To Admire is more ambitious and more rewarding than their first two releases combined, and for me, that's speaking volumes. One only has to look upon to new (and great) art direction they've added to visual represent the change in the band's direction and growth found within.

2 out of 5 stars

Why is this a good album? July 18, 2007
11 out of 23 found this review helpful

Well, it's not a good album. Everyone who is looking at this review right now loves Turn on the Bright Lights. If you liked Antics, then the drugs must be working better for you than for me, a decent album though. Without their name, Our Love to Admire would go completely unnoticed. There is nothing happening on this record. It is a parade of the same banal recipe. Their first single is semi catchy, but, other than that, no other songs jumped out at me. Please find some inspiration for your band, so you can inspire your fans like you once did.

4 out of 5 stars

Number 3 with a Rocket! July 11, 2007
10 out of 13 found this review helpful

No, INTERPOL does not break any major new ground with this release.

Is that a bad thing? Not at all.

Interpol has truely come into its own sound and OLtA is a tight set of tracks that had me reaching for the repeat button after the first listen. It grabbed me right away and just keeps on getting better. From the catchy first track all the way to the ambient epic of the last, this is one cohesive album that just SOUNDS GOOD!

Any fans of the previous two should not be dissappoint with this one, and people who like the favor of some 80s New Wave in their contemporay music should be pleased as well.

Three strong albums -- I have high hopes for number four!

EDIT: After a couple months of ownership, I have to say that this album is addictive! I have trouble getting out of the CD player in my car! ;')

3 out of 5 stars

Truly disappointing August 5, 2007
10 out of 15 found this review helpful

"Turn on the Bright Lights" and "Antics" are two of my very favorite albums, so I was understandably excited about this one. Early listens to "Pioneer to the Falls" and "The Heinrich Maneuver" got my hopes up that this record would be an epic to match Interpol's debut. Unfortunately, the rest of the album doesn't live up to the promise of those two songs -- and even those two, upon repeated listens, reveal themselves to be lesser efforts from a band that made two near-perfect albums on their first two tries.

The band seems to lack the punch, much of it supplied by killer drums and bass, from their first two works. Songs like "No I in Threesome," "All Fired Up" and "Wrecking Ball" simply fall flat; they lack the drive, relentless energy and delicious atmosphere that I've come to expect from Interpol. Even the better songs, like "Heinrich" and "Pioneer," seem strangely muted. The best songs on here, including "Mammoth" and "Rest My Chemistry," have at least some of the impact of early Interpol, and they come close to rescuing this spotty album.

However, the biggest drawback here is that in the absence of this instrumental kick and power, the band's lyrical shortcomings -- even worse here than on their earlier efforts -- are exposed for just how serious they are. I was willing to go along with the silly lines found in some of the early songs, because they seemed to work well with the music and at least left some sense of mystery; it was possible to let them slide as metaphor or as Pixies-esque ornamentation. But here, the lyrics just seem laughable; "No I In Threesome," "Pace is the Trick," "All Fired Up" and even "Heinrich" have this problem in spades.

I truly like this band, and I hope they can regain their old form in the future. But this album, sadly, is no better than the rest of the alt-rock boilerplate being cranked out by any number of bands, from the Killers to She Wants Revenge. That's company I thought Interpol was too good for, but they proved me wrong with this one.

5 out of 5 stars

Today My Heart Swings! July 15, 2007
9 out of 13 found this review helpful

Well, Our Love to Admire is typical Interpol. It is just more of the same. All you get here is absolute brilliance, complexity, endless texture, power, passion, and a CD that you can play for a year straight without getting bored. If that's the type of pedestrian stuff you are interested in then I guess I can recommend this album to you. But seriously folks! What an astounding release. The only song that caught my attention the first time through was The Heinrich Maneuver. By the third and fourth hearing I had already become arrested by Pioneer to the Falls and Rest my Chemistry. At this point, I love the entire disc and have to say that Interpol is the best band of this new century. Putting out a great album is something, but to put out three in a row is amazing. I have to apologize for all the fawning but I just do not see anything wrong with this assemble. Interpol, please keep working, recording, and giving so much back to your fans.

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