Our Love to Admire (Capitol)
Our Love to Admire is a decent album that sounds crisper, uses more electronic tidbits here and there courtesy mostly of the keyboard, and highlights Paul Banks vocal capabilities. He has never sounded better. However, the actual music has. And after 3 years, I can't help but be a little disappointed by the final product. The catchy first single, "Heinrich Maneuver" didn't encourage our hopes that Interpol had added more to their palette, albeit still a solid track. However, the excellent "Pioneer to the Falls" and "Mammoth" do show Interpol expanding their sonic ambitions. This is probably the most anticipated album of the year -definitely for me. Our Love to Admire has received the most intense mixed reviews of any recent record...the British absolutely love it. Sadly, I'm not quite there. But overall there are enough solid moments to make it a pretty dang good album, even if it's not up to the caliber of their past albums.
What puts Interpol in such a tight position is that they already released -what is in my opinion- the best album of the millennium with Turn Out the Bright Lights. Living up to that album is no simple feat so to release a merely good album is to pretty much automatically produce criticism...especially with everyone's high hopes. But as I said, there are positive and encouraging moments on Admire, most important of which is Paul banks vocals. His lyrics are as clever and obtuse as ever: "There are seven ancient pawn shops along the road, and the seven aching daddies you may want to know"("Mammoth"), albeit at times juvenile("No I in Threesome"). The lyrical matter of many of the songs reflect Banks' personal struggles with relationships -and at times, drugs: "I live my life in cocaine, Just a rage and three kinds of yes...You look so young, like a daisy in my lazy eyes" he somewhat laments on one of the standout tracks, "Rest My Chemistry". You don't have to put in too much research to get the idea of "Heinrich Maneuver" -the lyrics centered around a former love who moved west with high aspirations. The lyrics remain somber for most of the album -on the 2ND-to-last track, "Wrecking Ball", he sings "I'm inside like the wrecking ball through your eye...no one's for me. "Who do you think?", one of the better tracks, and "Wrecking Ball" both reflect the U2 influence that has always been there. Sometimes it seems Turn Out the Bright Lights is what The Unforgettable Fire would have sounded like if Robert Smith had been the producer and Ian Curtis the singer. Our Love to Admire will grow on you, and at the end of the year I suspect it will be one of my favorites of 2007.
hear: Pioneer to the Falls, There's no I in Threesome, Heinrich Maneuver, Mammoth, Rest My Chemistry, Who do You Think?
www.Interpolnyc.com
www.Capitolrecords.com
No comments:
Post a Comment