Interpol
It’s hard not to listen to a lot of the rock that came out of the 2000s and wonder what made it so special. Perhaps we were so fed up with boy bands, nü metal and Britney Spears that we grasped onto anything that offered an alternative. That’s not to say bands like The Strokes, The White Stripes, and The Hives, weren’t good—they just don’t seem worthy of all the superlatives thrown onto them.
But I still love and defend Interpol. In my mind, they are the first truly post-9/11 group who epitomizes an era of confusion, dread and sad romance. You’d be hard-pressed to find someone that doesn’t consider Turn on the Bright Lights a classic. It’s an album that doesn’t peddle hope. Instead, it’s filled with anxiety, but also end-times style sexiness that’s impossible to reproduce. That album was the perfect soundtrack to being scared and uncertain, but still had a sexy swagger. And if that’s not today’s society in a nutshell, I don’t know what is.
Many Interpol fans dropped off after the similarly great Antics, which is too bad (“Rest My Chemistry” off Our Love to Admire is my favorite Interpol song). This year’s release, Marauder, offers some solid jams and the LP’s single “The Rover” shows the band’s talent for being pervy-sinister despite a bouncy hook. I mean, I get that a lot of it sounds the same, but for me, it’s still the sound of a band who taught us how to hug ourselves in the dark.
Interpol plays Friday, Oct. 5 at Cal Coast Credit Union Open Air Theatre.