It’s impossible to say how many groups of vagabond wannabe rock stars were wandering around post-9/11 New York City convinced that they had ‘it’ — an aura, a specific combination of sound and attitude that could elevate them to the level of the city’s many sacrosanct legends: the Ramones, Talking Heads, Sonic Youth. Many of those erstwhile headbangers are probably in less glamorous professions now. Nonetheless, there are a select few who pulled off exactly what they set out to do: LCD Soundsystem, The Strokes and, of course, Interpol.
But time has not been so kind to all these groups. James Murphy’s collective hasn’t released an album since 2017, and The Strokes’ Rick Rubin-produced effort from earlier this year was an admirable attempt at a new sonic direction that nonetheless produced the band’s weakest work to date. Two decades have naturally brought plenty of turbulence to Paul Banks and co. as well. The band’s truculent yet brilliant bassist Carlos D quit in 2010 after losing interest in playing altogether, with his final contribution to the band being their self-titled album that remains the closest the group has come to a lousy record.
Still, there is something provocative, thrilling and even unfamiliar about their latest album, “This Mirror Weighs a Ton,” that makes one think Interpol might still have a trick left up their sleeve.
The 12-track release — which also serves as the outfit’s first record for Partisan, the label which also houses acts like Geese, Fontaines D.C. and Cigarettes After Sex — does share some continuity with the works that precede it. 2022’s “The Other Side of Make-Believe” and 2018’s “Marauder” — both, fittingly, released in federal election years, a pattern the band has kept up since 2010 — found Banks basking in his own ambiguously dreamy lyricism. Daniel Kessler and Sam Fogarino are also back at lead guitar and drums, respectively.
Still, the addition of longtime touring bassist Brad Truax as a core member and the arrival of keyboardist-slash-superstar producer Andrew Wyatt (who’s worked with everyone from Lil Wayne to Liam Gallagher) breathe new life into a group whose last few releases suggested a trio of icons content to stick with their recognizable, well-loved sound.
Truax’s first time in the studio with Interpol may have come fifteen years after he began performing with the ensemble, but it’s not a moment too soon, as he brings a versatility that has been missing since Carlos D’s heyday. While his work on the title track is downtempo (Banks mentioned a Massive Attack influence in his new bassist) and almost shoegazey, the album’s other lead single, the propulsive “See Out Loud,” indicates that Truax is equally capable of keeping up with something closer to a classic Interpol punk ballad. These, which are the album’s first two songs, prove to be two of the album’s more memorable cuts, but it is the latter that best exemplifies the reborn group’s sound, as echoing vocals are layered alongside colliding strings to produce something electrifying.
Though the days of Interpol songs detailing the lives of British serial killers or sirenic amphibians may be over, there is still some storytelling on display here. Following the shift from fiction to introspection that came in the interval between “Marauder” and “Make-Believe,” Banks — who has gotten married and had two children since the band’s last album — now finds himself looking back on the volatility of the past as someone who is perhaps finally comfortable in the spotlight. “I never held my tongue / And watched the crowds disappear,” he belts on “Enemy.” “I can’t bear to sink my luck into a cosmic affair.”
“Figured out how I’m gonna feel / This is not sudden to me,” he adds over Wyatt’s swelling piano on the album’s final track, “Sudden.” One suspects that there is a sly irony at work, that in fact this more sensitive Banks is still figuring things out. Even so, the frontman has rarely been so transparent.
What’s most impressive about the group’s new and improved sound is that they’ve accommodated new members without sacrificing one of punk music’s more recognizable sonic identities. “Wings On Fire” is a hard-charging anthem powered by the reverb that made the band’s name more than 20 years ago, but Wyatt’s production is cleaner and more accessible than previous endeavors. “Bird and The Serpent,” a complex standout towards the end of the album, finds Kessler in fine form and full command of the quintet, opening the two-part track with majestic power chords before shifting into a more psychedelic register aided by strings and synths. It’s maybe the farthest the band gets from their musical home base, an exciting sign that this new group is not averse to exploring novel territory.
We very well may have to wait until 2030 to find out what’s next for the now-quintet (they also added veteran keyboardist Brandon Curtis as an official member in June, despite Wyatt’s assumption of the recording duties). It’s never a given that a combo will continue once its members start having kids; if another release is meant to be, it’s bound to bring something new to the table.
“This Mirror Weighs a Ton” marks the band’s return to recording in their quasi-hometown for the first time in more than a decade, and one can almost tell just from listening to the music they’ve compiled. At times it’s experimental, and at times it’s even imperfect, but it’s always Interpol, right back where they’re meant to be.
