Customer Reviews

Our Love To Admire

5 star:		(40)
4 star:		(29)
3 star:		(16)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have the joy in announcing the new Interpol album is as good as I hoped it would be. In fact it does exactly what it needs to do. It sounds like Interpol, it's got some great lyrics, and it timidly breaks into some new directions. Our Love To Admire is another step forward for the NYC band without abandoning the familiar waters in which they sail. I'll spare the Joy Division comparisons because after 3 records, that has gotten very old, and quite frankly it's a label not all that appropriate anymore. Sure, Paul Banks' voice still has the Ian Curtis gloominess about it, but musically I think Interpol have gotten more adventurous and playful on Our Love, and in some ways, much stronger for it. Again, this doesn't mean the band stray far from the formula, Our Love To Admire is a sweeping ode to relationships and the personal struggles that come with them.

The album starts off somewhat more experimental before settling in, but after a few listens, this start, particularly Pioneer of the Falls, might be one of the key moments of the entire disc. Nearly 6 minutes in length, Pioneer of the Falls sounds as if we are witnessing a funeral of sorts, with all kinds of subtle sonic rumblings going on. It's not over the top mind you, but it's enough to evoke a new and emotional starting point for the new material. A stunning start. The first single, The Heinrich Maneuver, is an up-tempo jab to an ex-love now residing on the opposite coast, it's fun and as accessible as Interpol can be. As always, Carlos D's commanding bass lines carry the single, and in many ways, anchor the whole of the record. More familiar footing can be found in, `No I in Threesome' which is about (obviously enough) someone trying resurrect a dying love affair with ways to spice things up. In it, Paul playfully sings, "maybe it's time we give something new a try". The result, both sonically and lyrically, is a relentless and interesting view of love and how certain people may handle the harder times. Mammoth, the album's dynamic fifth track, attacks the ears with Daniel Kessler's simple, repeated guitar riffs that fans may feel echo early work like C'Mere or PDA (not a bad thing at all). More ambient numbers are also present as well. The eerie, The Lighthouse, has Bank's crooning in a way that it almost turns into spoken word, it's strange and affecting.

The subtleness of Interpol's maturation and evolution as a band is more obvious in tracks like, Who Do You Think, Pace Is the Trick, and Rest My Chemistry. All have an underlining new spirit and fervor reserved for bands making drastic changes to what they do best. Not the case here, Interpol have employed these changes with the expected precision we've come to admire from them. And even with all the expected underpinnings, the band has grown perfectly into what they do. Fully realized, Our Love To Admire is more ambitious and more rewarding than their first two releases combined, and for me, that's speaking volumes. One only has to look upon to new (and great) art direction they've added to visual represent the change in the band's direction and growth found within.

"Our love to admire" is my introduction to the music of Interpol. Chiming melodic guitars and a brooding melancholic feel best describes the sound of this CD.

Interpol is a New York based quartet, but you'd be forgiven for thinking they were British. Think an edgier Coldplay or Snow Patrol, or even better, Joy Division.

Opening is the gentle lilting "Pioneer to the falls" with tumbling guitar sounds. More upbeat is the humorous "No 1 in the threesome" which still manages to sound gloomy.

"Scale" is a midtempo charmer, and lead off single "Heinrich maneuver" is a dance rocker a-la Franz Ferdinand. It's a kiss off to an ex.

"Mammoth" is another upbeat number with wonderful chiming guitars. Other upbeat numbers are "All fired up", and "Who do you think".

On the slower side of things, there's the lovely "Pace is the trick", the choppy "Rest my chemistry", the atmospheric "Wrecking ball" (with a name like that, I was expecting a rocker), and the dirge-like ambient epic "Lighthouse" (with percussion kicking in towards the final minute) which to me wouldn't be out of place on a Radiohead CD.

There's a whole lot to admire on this CD.

Having been a big fan of the first two albums, and seeing them a couple of times in concert, I eagerly anticipated the latest release from Interpol. However, I find my self disappointed with the new album, not so much because I feel it is a bad album, but because after listening to it 5 times, I would be hard pressed to talk of any songs that grabbed my attention. I couldn't even start to hum a few bars of anything on it, and that is just so not Interpol.

Pioneer to the Falls, The Heinrich Maneuver and Rest My Chemistry sound like they would have fit in nicely with either of their first two albums, but neither would have been stand outs. Not that they are bad songs, they just don't grab you and pull your soul into the song like a good portion of their previous work would do.

For now, Our Love to Admire will sit in the drawer. I'll probably go see them in concert when they swing by, in hopes that their stellar live show will turn my opinion of the new material. Until then I'll throw on Turn on the Bright Lights and enjoy Interpol's past brilliance.

When I heard Antics I liked it but it was just a continuation of the first album. When Our Love to Admire came out I bought it thinking "What else can these guys do?" I have my answer. OLTA is Interpol but different. They kept the Interpol sound but did different things with it, some of it more upbeat and some not. I am a satisfied customer. It gets better with every listening.

Well, it isn't Turn on the Bright Lights. And it isn't Antics either. I really can't compare the three. Bright Lights was dark and darker, Antics wasn't as dark but added more blatant obtuseness to the proceedings. This one seems more...straightforward...to me. It just seems more obvious to me.

Track-by-track:
1. Pioneer to the Falls- As usual, a rousing opener that builds and builds and builds.
2. No I in Threesome- Not as cringe-worthy as expected, a peppy love song about hoping to find a new spark in an established relationship. Piano plays a big part in this, though doesn't overpower. May be the song with the biggest Carlos D presence (more solid bass).
3. The Scale- This one comes off as a little bland- first of two tracks that utilize backtracking
4. The Heinrich Maneuver- The first single, I have to say it is really quite good. Catchy and sounds great on the album (in the live recording from their early, shows it doesn't come off as solid). First of two tracks that pull a "Say Hello to the Angels" of cutting out.........and then coming back in again (maybe getting a bit cliched?).
5. Mammoth- Another that I'd heard from live recordings, and, again, it sounds really good on the album. Big, loud guitars, it almost starts out like Not Even Jail, but once the song gets going, it isn't really close to NEJ. Maybe it is cliched, but when the guitars cut out for the deafeningly quiet bridge and the piano shows up again, it is truly a great moment. This is going to be a highlight of their live shows.
6. Pace is the Trick- A nice, quieter song after the ruckus of Mammoth. I can hear touches of Take you on a Cruise in it at times.
7. All Fired Up- Decent track, but it just seems a little disjointed....
8. Rest My Chemistry- I REALLY like this song. It has a very bluesy feel to it that just is a lot of fun to me.
9. Who do you think- Maybe a bit of a clunky intro, but a typical Interpol mid-to-fast tempo rocker with a lot of bounce to it, similar to C'mere.
10. Wrecking ball- A nice penultimate track, this will be a big one live as well. More backtracking on this, and even.....an orchestra?
11. Lighthouse- I guess I'm not seeing this one yet. Takes a while to get going. I haven't grasped this one yet...I'm trying to think of what this one reminds me of...OH! It sounds very much like The Walkmen for a while before coming back to 'Pol at the end.

Some comments-
-Paul sounds great on vocals. I don't know what it is- he just sounds....more true?
-Daniel on lead guitar really works hard on this one. His guitar work is really impressive.
-Sam on drums is spot on as usual.
-Carlos doesn't seem to be as prominent in this. Maybe he's just not coming through to me yet. But it sounds like he's just not as big a part of this album.

This is a pretty good album. I am liking it more and more the more I listen to it. It is certainly an album that you have to just forget all expectations and focus on this album. Forget about the past albums. Just don't even compare them, or even try. Just....don't. I'm not saying that because it pales in comparison to the earlier albums, it is just that if you go in expecting PDA or Obstacle 1, you aren't going to get it. You aren't going to get another Not Even Jail. But that isn't a bad thing. Or, at least, it doesn't have to be.

I have to admit that this year's albums by the wunderkind of the indie music world have been a bit disheartening. Arcade Fire, Bloc Party, Killers- while they are fine albums, they just don't have that FIRE that their earlier albums had. Bloc Party's Silent Alarm has such a solid bass section, not to mention the political edge, that Weekend in the City just doesn't have. Arcade Fire is good, it just has lost a little bit of the spark and playfulness that Funeral has (even if that sounds like an oxymoron). Heck, I've got the latest Editors album already, and while it is fine, it is missing the urgency that Back Room had.

Interpol is NOT like that, however. The soul is there, even if it isn't quite in the same place that everyone would expect it. But it is there!

Thank goodness for that!

It is my opinion that with Our Love to Admire Interpol has returned to the subtlety of Turn on the Bright Lights, and is a better album than Antics. I owned Bright Lights for almost a year after it came out before I really listened to the album and came to appreciate it. This was partly due to how different it was from all the other music on the radio, with its eccentric lyrics and subtle musicality. You really needed to pay attention while listening to value it (at least I did). It is now one of my all-time favorites.

When Antics was released, I listened to it the first time and felt like I "got it," meaning it was in a similar vein as Bright Lights but lacked the nuance that had rewarded close listening. It's a good album, but not great. The first time I heard the new album I wasn't blown away. But I did hear some of the seeds of what had made Bright Lights so remarkable, and I stuck with it. After listening to it for a few weeks, I have to say I think Our Love to Admire is a great album. I won't do a song by song thing, since that has already been done by other reviewers. Basically, the whole record is full of little surprises and clever touches that make listening to it sort of like trying to complete a puzzle or a crossword: you're listening to a song that you've heard a dozen times before when something pops out at you from the bass line or the percussion and totally changes the shape of the song. It is that kind of detail that makes Interpol such a great band, and it really comes through on this album.

Interpol is, hands down, one of the few modern rock bands that has gotten consistenly better with each album.

I am blown away by "Our Love To Admire".

A stunning array of progressive and deep tracks with incredible haunting vocals. I'm truly surprised at the less than 5-star ratings by the fans.

Interpol has delivered a nuclear bomb of an album.

Their best album to date.

Bravo!

This CD isn't exactly taking them into a new direction, but I believe it's pulling more of what was hidden the past couple of years. Mascara was a great song, but it wasn't on the first or second album. This new CD has more material that sounds like it would've been hidden material similar to mascara or the specialist. Most of the songs have that droning, dark voice of Paul Banks, with the exclusion of "The Heinrich Maneuver." It's a hard comparison among all three CD's, but they have not turned for the worst. If anything, the CD sounds like antics, but the songs are powerful enough to have you coming back if you listen to them thoroughly.

Remaining as dark as they wanna be, Interpol tread familiar ground on their third CD. Less bleak that "Antics" but less propulsive, "Our Love To Admire" successfully negotiates the major label jump without compromising the band's sound. In fact, this may be an even more outlandishly experimental album then before, with the ambient finale "The Lighthouse" being the most sonically ambitious song Interpol has ever laid down.

At the same time, the signs of career are setting in. "No I in Threesome" sounds like the same tired rock on the road with ladies song that Foreigner could have spit out. But the one-two punch of the "Wrecking Ball/The Lighthouse" finale forgives any missteps "Our Love To Admire" may contain, and repeated listening reveals few. As on the first two albums, there is a darkness here that echoes with bass-heavy rhythms and spiky guitars. "Show me the dirt pile and I will pray," snarls Peter Banks as the band swirls around in him. It makes the opening salvo of "Our Love To Admire" a heady reminder that the band that created the excellent "Turn On the Bright Lights" still has ambitions of carving their own sound. On songs like "Mammoth," "The Heinrich Maneuver" and "Pioneer To The Falls," Interpol proves that they have what it takes.

After a startling and instantly classic debut album (2002's Turn On the Bright Lights) and an upbeat but less ambitious sophomore set (2004's Antic), Interpol made the jump to the major labels, and then took its sweet time to come up with new material. Finally here comes the much anticipated new album.

The music on "Our Love to Admire" (11 tracks; 47 min.) generally seems to fall within two categories: on the one hand there is the continuation of more upbeat songs, with the prime example being the first single "The Heinrich Maneuver" ("Slow Hands" Part 2, but even catchier), but also on songs like "No I in Threesome" and in a strange way also on "All Fired Up" (with the main guitar riff seemingly lifted straight from Radiohead's "I Might Be Wrong"!). Other songs fall within the more ambitious TOTBL-like category, such a mesmorizing slowburner (and album opener) "Pioneer to the Falls", "Pace is the Trick", "Rest My Chemistry", and the closer "The Lighthouse", which is haunting in many respects and the perfect way to close things of. There are unfortunately also a couple of songs such as "The Scale" and "Who Do You Think" that don't grab you and really don't seem to fit in very well in this set.

Interpol has not gone into any new musical direction or even expanded dramarically on what it has done before, which some might call a lack in ambition. But there are a lot of great tunes on this album, and in the end that is what it's about. I saw Interpol play a number of the new songs at Coachella a few months ago, and live they sound better than ever, including on the new songs.