818 Interpol - Antics (2004)

 818 Interpol - Antics (2004)

Studio Album - Indie Rock




About the Act:

Interpol are a band from New York, formed in 1997 and are part of the "post-punk revival". They have had a fairly stable membership with two out of the four original members still in the band. Their studio album count is 6.


About the Album:

This was their second album, which received good reviews.


My History with this Album:

None


Review:

I really like the bass. I know it's an odd place to start, but it is the thing I enjoyed most. I tend to notice the bass because I am a bassist. So the bass is mostly quite rhythmical, solid quavers, quite deep in tone (look, I know, it's bass, but even for bass this is quite a thick tone, with richness at the bottom, but not much in the high harmonics to make it cut through). The playing is excellent, and at times I get the impression he would quite like to be playing funk. The drums are pretty good too, with quite varied patterns, and together they go well. The other major instrumental ingredient is guitars, and there are two of them. They have quite toppy sounds, strident, but not too jarring, and the combination with the thick bass and generally nothing else in the middle makes a good spectrum. It's not washy guitar, but often ching ching ching chords, and very often overdubbed. The guitarists seem to have worked out a limited range of sounds and have stuck to them. Overall, the sound is distinctive because they use the same instrument sounds throughout, but it is not too dull because the music varies from fast almost disco beats, to mid-paced rock, to almost reggae sounds, to slower mellow tracks, with a good variety of arrangement. My only real complaint about the music is that at times it could be tighter.

Singing - it's OK, I'm not the greatest fan of his voice, it cuts through OK and has a hint of the David Byrne to it, or even verging on Michael Stipe. The lyrics strike me as being a cryptic collection of phrases that they liked the sound of. There may well be intention behind them, but mostly not clear or apparent. This is not necessarily a bad thing, I know a lot of good songs that ramble along in this way. Heck, I've even written a few myself. It does mean, however, you don't get an instant connection through the subject matter.

So, I listened twice. The first time I was not particularly drawn in, but the second time I felt like I "got" it, and as a result appreciated it more. It fits in my head in the sort of category that Talking Heads do

7/10


Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/2OFkUKYNNFQ74kJOSc9gzz

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgZlNt0UvT8ThItsXtLIfqlXh7J_qXe9o

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antics_(album)



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