Interpol – Antics (2004)

I first heard about Interpol around 2003 while working in a café in central Helsinki. We would quite often play our own CDs while working and this way I was introduced to great many bands. One of my co-workers was really excited about Interpol's debut album Turn On the Bright Lights. I thought it sounded good, but at the same time, I wasn't really too fussed about it. It wasn't until Antics came out that I was really sold. Antics has a more melodic approach to its songs and almost every song on the album has hooks to make you remember them. When I started university in 2004 I worked as a DJ quite often in the student parties and I would regularly play Evil, C'mere or Slow Hands to the dancing indie crowds. The more recent albums from Interpol haven't been that exciting and I still think that Antics was the hight of their career.



In early 00's, post-punk revival was really popular and there were numerous bands who drew their influences from early 80's bands such as Joy Division, Public Image Ltd. and Echo and the Bunnymen. In my opinion, Interpol was probably the best of all of these. Their songs are melodic and there's dark industrialism that sounds to me like a modernised version of Joy Division. Unlike many other bands in the revival movement, Interpol was making songs that were catchy.

Back in the day, Evil was by far the most popular song from this album. It was played everywhere. Personally I really liked C'mere and it worked better for dancing in my opinion, although people weren't that familiar with that song. Later on, I have noticed that Slow Hands is probably the best song out of all of these to make people dance, probably because of its disco beats. What really makes Antics a great album though, is the fact that, in addition to the more danceable fast songs it has amazing slow tempo songs that are beautiful and haunting. These songs include Next Exit, Take You On a Cruise and A Time to Be So Small. Purely on musical merits, I would actually say that A Time to Be So Small is the best song on this album. It's a great way to end an album. The melody is just amazingly melancholic.

When this album came out, the music video was still somewhat alive. MTV was mostly already filled with reality TV, but they also had great music programmes. I remember seeing this music video for Evil quite a few times. In this video, a dummy has been in a car accident and the rescue personnel take him to a hospital. At the same time the dummy is singing the song. In the end the dummy starts dancing on the operation table vigorously. I think this storyline fits the song quite well, because the song starts ominously and quietly and it then explodes into amazing measures.

I still liked the third album by the Interpol when it came out. There were a couple of great songs on that album, but listening back to that album, it already showed some signs that the band had given their best songs. The fourth album sounded to me outright boring. The band had not been able to renew themselves enough and the new songs didn't have similar hooks to draw attention as on these first couple of albums. I would say that that's a shame, but I think this is kind of inevitable these days. Most bands who completely renew themselves fail miserably. At least if you're doing the same stuff you always did, there's a chance that your fans will keep interested. This wasn't really the case for me though. I do still like the first three albums though and they remain historically important albums from the time when I was starting my university studies.

Listen to the album on Spotify.