Favorite Albums: 2000-2004
7. Interpol, Turn On The Bright Lights
Original position on my Stylus ballot: #39
Shit, I said I wouldn’t reference REM any more, didn’t I? So saying these guys sound like the Georgia 4 if they’d overtly chased the Echo & The Bunnymen market would be cheating, right? I also don’t want to use up my chances to namecheck Weezer yet, so I shouldn’t point out how this album valiantly compacted, glossied and paraded ’80s guitar tricks for a new generation of air strumming dorks the way the Blue Album did ’70s ones, should I? Can I admit my college pal Travis was right about how great the reverb on this album is, at least? I really should.
That reverb is probably the biggest reason this album sounds ever grander as the group falls down the rabbit hole of Paul Banks’ endless art-student pick-up poetry (the downside of their underreported RHCP fanship), though the relative bounce of Carlos D’s bass playing here (the upside) is also a factor. Every song sounds like a big-ass boat appearing in the rain and for all their obvious asininity, lyrics like “her stories are boring and stuff” and “move into my ass face” have proven pretty damn memorable. Dude should have never taken his sunglasses off.
