Call The Cops - Interpol

Sitting in a West London hotel room, Interpol are a band surrounded by luxury. To their left sits a half eaten lunchtime meal partially hidden by the silver serving case it was delivered in, and to their right, velour curtains drape from the ceiling to the floor with lavish elegance. In fact, the colourful – dare I say it 'romantic' room, which features a fetching multicoloured piece of butterfly artwork, proves to be our first talking point. “You know that it’s so posh that it becomes punk,” jokes Carlos ‘D’ Dengler, Interpol’s bassist who is sitting legs tightly crossed taking it all in. “You know, after sleeping on many, many damp floors I don’t mind,” interrupts Sam Fogarino, Interpol’s drummer, as he cracks open another bottle of Coke from the mini-bar and lights up a cigarette. “Sometimes I almost gravitate to the floor because I’m so used to it,” he adds with humility, as if the crick in his neck is still niggling away.

Today – like their hotel - the pair look the part. Both dressed in tailored garb, D is sporting a slim fitting pinstripe shirt, grey waistcoat and cowboy boots, while Fogarino has gone for an all black ensemble topped off with a dislodged matching Trilby. It’s so bespoke really that, had they not played, what D later describes as an “amazing” show at London’s KOKO the night before, then you wouldn’t accept that they were one half of a New York band on the verge of releasing their third album, ‘Our Love To Admire,’ and one half of a band who look to be on verge of something very special indeed.

If their past releases were anything to go by then this level of sartorial elegance has always been Interpol’s for the taking. It’s just the last time they were in the UK to promote an album, (2004’s, ‘Antics’) things were very different. The band had been on a fantastically relentless tour which had continued virtually non-stop since the release of their debut, ‘Turn On The Bright Lights,’ in 2002, and would continue globally up until the end of 2005. They were tired, aloof, and although they had jumped the second album hurdle as if it wasn’t even there to be jumped, they weren’t in a position to take it all in. It’s only now with ‘Our Love To Admire,’ their most tangible work to date, that they appear to have evaluated their own success and realised how they’ve evolved as musicians, and more importantly as people. “There was no evolution between ‘Bright Lights’ and Antics’,” admits D, with a hint of regret. “Between ‘Antics’ and this one (however) there was a definite huge evolution in our personal lives and how we interacted with each other. It was really all a huge maturation process.”

While some will find the idea of Interpol ‘maturing’ difficult to grasp, after all they are - with the admission of Paul Banks, the group's lead singer and guitarist – all the other side of thirty, Fogarino expands conclusively on D’s comment. “Yeah, just in terms of having a clear mind and a clear state and shutting out all the peripheral stuff that actually – in the moment becomes all consuming – but it really has nothing to do with making music.”

The clear mind that Fogarino speaks so imperatively about came courtesy of an almost performance less 2006. For the first time in their existence, the New York band had retreated, with all ties – including their contract to independent label Matador – severed. It turned out to be somewhat of an epiphany when it came to making the new record. “It almost felt like a mature version of the pre ‘Bright Lights’ era when we were playing music with an unknown future which was just because we enjoyed playing around the city and it just kept going from there,” explains Fogarino, as he sips on his Coke. “It was kind of nice to have that. It wasn’t exactly the same because of where we’ve been, I mean, it’s totally informed where we are at this point, but that was a nice thing, just to really have no boundaries, no ties, just to go free and make the record that we’ve made.”

From its opening track, the sounds and themes of ‘Our Love To Admire’ leave you in no doubt that Interpol have made a fresh start. There’s a renewed intensity to founding member Daniel Kesseler’s massaging guitar riffs and a new depth to Banks’ vocal delivery, which at times is as spine tingling as a cactus needle. Then there’s the introduction of outside contributors. For the first time the introspective band sought a co-producer in Rich Costey (Muse, Nine Inch Nails), who they admit they struck up an “instant rapport” because of his proven ability to adapt to the sound of a band, as opposed to adapting a band to sound like him. Besides Costey, there’s the arrival of new instruments - a sure sign with any band who have a greater sense of trust in themselves and something which just wouldn’t have happened in the past with Interpol because of time constraints. A full brass section, for example, joins the band on the narcotic and hypnotic, ‘Rest My Chemistry.’