Interpol "Antics" [2004]

Why anyone in the mid-Aughts would have had the slightest interest in imitating the bleak post-punk abortion that was Joy Division is extremely difficult to surmise, especially seeing it's clear Interpol was interested in being a successful band. Perhaps it's that fellow New Yorkers The Strokes had ripped off every other late-70s sound by the time Interpol showed up, from Television to Iggy Pop to Tom Petty. Or maybe the guys from Interpol are interested in taking the frenzied despair out of the Joy Division sound -- the bloody hatchet out of Fozzie Bear's vocal delivery, if you will. This they do succeed at. Yet the suicidal part of Ian Curtis' singing was at least something to derive morose amusement from when listening to Joy Division (and when he actually went through with it? whoah! to this day, I'm still like, "Fuck you, Axl Rose!"); hearing Paul Banks' arch, pinched vocal come-ons to random chicks in the audience is still disconcerting, I guess, but more in the way that I want to throw a brick at his head. And anyway, if post-punk had really been this bland and sluggish the first time around, we'd still be buried in the various mutations of disco. So while I don't really begrudge Interpol for trying to bang as many tatted-up, pink-haired Soho chicks as they can get their hands on, neither do I need to appreciate them or their dumb name, which is really just a more-pretentious version of "The Police." They should arrest themselves, for all I care.