I've had the strangest revival the past week or so. It's Interpol. I heard their new (eponymous) album once, streamed somewhere, and categorically decided not to buy it, as little more than 'Lights' and 'Barricade' really fascinated me. "Alright, post-punk-revival's dead for good", I thought. But then I put on Interpol's former album, Our Love To Admire, and thought: "This is a bloody good album, why haven't I heard this since maybe two years ago?". And thus, this past week has been Interpol-revival week. It all started with 'Rest My Chemistry', which is a beautiful ballad about being drunk or stoned or whatever, and seeing something, someone who's, in the magic of the moment, unbelievably youthfully gorgeous; as Banks fragilely croons:
So young, so sweet,
so surprised.
You look so young,
like a daisy in my lazy eye.
Pretty sweet. Then there's of course 'The Heinrich Maneuver', a highlight since day one, when one of my ex-girlfriends presented Interpol to a then unimpressed me. There's a nice air of aggressiveness to this one. But there are also songs on ...Admire, like 'The Scale', or the impressive closing pair of 'Wrecking Ball' and 'The Lighthouse', that haven't really appealed to me before, but do so impressively this time around.
And then I though of how deservedly critically acclaimed Antics was, and how Turn On The Bright Lights, which I haven't ever even heard, was near the very top of many a decade-in-music list, and I thought: "Maybe I'd better buy the new one anyway...".
