Antics

Of all the mooted heirs to the U.S Garage throne of The Strokes, it would have taken a scarily prescient punter (or a fundamentalist goth) to have put money on the accession of Interpol.
Bookish, fixated on British new wave of the early 80s, and more concerned with building up hymnal and noir-ish crescendos than in detailing their social habits, the New York four-piece seemed less like superstars in waiting than quaint throw-backs to a time when a fondness for trench coats, DM boots and Jim Morrison may actually have got you a girlfriend.
It is a testament to the grand, subtle power of their debut album Turn On The Bright Lights that, not only did Interpol manage to avoid the bombastic pitfalls that could so easily have overcome a band with their CD collections (who said Placebo?), they somehow touched a chord with punters grown boney on the slim indie pickings of recent years. TOTBL may not have pulled up too many trees on its release, but the seeds of its reputation soon scattered far and wide.
So, two years on and we find ourselves here; approaching Antics as one of the most eagerly anticipated albums of the year.
It is a record comfortable with such heady expectations: roaring from the blocks with self-confidence and a fractious sense of mission. Opener ‘Next Exit’ has a distorted, twisted Ronnettes-go-Voidoids feel to it, while ‘Evil’ takes aim for the anthemic and scores handsomely. We have to wait until the spidery ‘Take A Cruise’ before Interpol’s more plaintive side sees some exposure, and while it falls short of the high watermark set by the sublime ‘NYC’, it still packs a mighty emotional punch.
Always an urgent album, at its best - ‘Not Even Jail’ and the stunning ‘Length Of Love’ - Antics manages to harness a frazzled nervous system with a fearless soul. Its unfortunate tendency to admire its own reflection may prevent it from proving truly great (‘NARC‘ and ‘Slow Hands‘ repeat similar tricks) but with Paul Banks in such fine, emotive voice, even this flaw proves forgivable.