Okay, literally no one asked for this but I’ve decided to share my thoughts on Interpol’s new album The Other Side of Make-Believe. I think it’s great.
First things first, I’ve actually been wanting to write my thoughts on the music I listen to for a while now. Music is a huge part of my life and I love both making music and listening to it. However, one thing that pisses me off about music journalism and reviews is when writers make negative comments or bash the music they’re writing about. Music is subjective — something I hate may be what someone else likes and appreciates, and vice versa. So I’m only going to talk about the things I appreciated and not do any bashing.
Anyways, Interpol is one of my favorite bands of all time. Their music fits into the post-punk revival and alternative genres. Their first album Turn On The Bright Lights (2002) is one of my favorite albums of all time. I stumbled upon Interpol in 2016 because Everything Is Wrong from my second favorite album of theirs El Pintor (2014) happened to be on my Spotify Discover Weekly playlist that week. I was really excited about this new album, especially because I really loved their previous record Marauder (2018). Interpol’s music tends to be very heavy - it features complex bass and drum parts that fit very well together, with energetic lead guitar lines and distant sounding rhythm guitar parts. Paul Banks (the lead singer) usually plays rhythm guitar while Daniel Kessler plays lead guitar. However sometimes Paul and Daniel will both play lead lines, which can lead to songs that sound a bit frantic in nature (listen to Interpol’s song Barricade for an example of this), which I love.
I really like The Other Side of Make-Believe. I bought a vinyl of it twice. It’s a bit different from Interpol’s previous work. I heard someone describe it as sounding a bit like The National, and I think I agree. The songs aren’t as rock-y per se — many of them are stripped down to only the bass-guitar-drums essentials. However, the sound is still heavy. The lyrics are a bit haunting and introspective. Interpol wrote this album during the pandemic, which could be one reason for the sound. Again, I love it.
One of my favorite things about Interpol are the bass and drum parts in their songs. Carlos Dengler is the founding bass player of the band, and he’s famous for his work. The guy was simply insane, played in Drop D (and took full advantage of those two extra notes), and wrote complex bass lines that needed to be heard and understood. Interpol’s early records treated the bass almost like another lead guitar — it’s placed high in the mix so you can clearly hear all of the insane shit being played on it. Sam Fogarino is Interpol’s drummer and plays with a style that has a bit of flair and is almost jazzy in nature. With Carlos the bass and drum parts complement each other well, but both parts also take the time to add some flair and do their own thing before coming back and unifying again. Fast forward a few years and Carlos leaves the band. Paul takes over bass duties and writes and records all of the bass lines in addition to rhythm guitar. The bass lines in Interpol’s work transitions from the frantic and flair nature of Carlos’ playing, to a powerful and heavy sound from Paul that’s placed lower in the mix. The bass has less flair and gets to the point more, and I feel like this is represented well in The Other Side of Make-Believe. The bass and drums sound like a healthy marriage - both parts complement and support each other well. I personally think both instruments shine the best when they operate in this fashion. In an interview before the album was released, Paul said that Sam did some of his best work on the record and I couldn’t agree more.
I also love the guitar lines on Interpol’s past work and on this album. I love Daniel’s lead guitar lines because he approaches them with a true understanding of sound dynamics. Many lead guitarists in rock bands love to show off and make their guitar front and center (I’m guilty of this in the music I write). Daniel isn’t like that. He can show off when he wants, but he can also relax his playing as well. In several of the songs on The Other Side of Make-Believe, the lead guitar lines are in the background holding everything down, sometimes even taking a back seat to the bass and drums. You can observe this a bit in Mr. Credit and Renegade Hearts — the lead guitar is sort of in the background along with rhythm guitar and almost sounds like another rhythm guitar part.
My favorite song on the record is Mr. Credit. As I said earlier, I think the bass and drums sound the best when they complement each other. I feel like this concept is demonstrated well in Mr. Credit. It’s a heavy song with the bass doing a lot of slide notes and chilling on the lower strings, and the drums doing “resets” where Sam hits the crash cymbals and closes the measures out on beat 3, chills for a beat, and then comes back in on beat 1 like nothing happened. The bass and drums do a really cool thing in the last chorus where they’re essentially playing with the same energy they’ve been doing the entire song. Suddenly and unexpectedly the drums transition from driving with an open hi-hat to driving with the ride cymbal, and the bass stops doing slide notes and drives with full on eighth notes.
Anyways, I think this is a good record and I can’t wait to hear these songs live when Interpol comes to Atlanta later this year.