“NYC“
from the album Turn on the Bright Lights
2002
iTunes
Forget the tiresome comparisons that got bandied about when this debut LP dropped (as if sounding like Joy Division were somehow a bad thing!). Interpol were working their own unique niche, and in a year full of strong contenders — Bright Eyes’ Lifted or the Story is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground; Rilo Kiley’s The Execution of All Things — Turn on the Bright Lights has still aged the best. Unlike many of their fellow scenesters, these impeccably styled Manhattanites were also fearsome musicians: Paul Banks singing ominous nonsense in his boozy basso profundo, Daniel Kessler going manic on guitar, and the killer rhythm section of Carlos Dengler (a.k.a. Carlos D.) and Sam Fogarino working furiously behind them both. Together they conjured an all-enveloping urban darkness, brightened by just the right amount of danceable rhythm. Even Interpol themselves haven’t quite been able to live up to that hypnotic standard on their subsequent efforts.