Interpol - Turn on the Bright Lights

When I eagerly snatched up Interpol’s debut full-length I was ignorant to the fact that I was not in fact buying it, but for every intangible reason it was just beginning to own me. The more you listen to Turn on the Bright Lights the further it festers and blossoms in your heart and soul. The oblique guitar atmospherics glimmer like stars lost in the moody backdrop of an all-encompassing black sky, while Paul Bank’s voice conjures tales of dark romanticism and dislocated love. In true heart throbbing fashion, Interpol magnify human emotion down to blinding, bone simple melodies that etch their consistency around the concrete musical surroundings of chilling keyboard drones and emotive, glacial guitar cuts. Although the tools that construct Turn on the Bright Lights are modest and almost basic, the method, style and technique that Interpol sculpts its magically epic soundscapes is what is most ravishing about their jaw dropping debut. A sense of mystique and spiritualistic aura gleams through in every aspect of Interpol that, when coupled with moonlit guitar streaks and love illuminated vocals, is nothing less than pure, unadulterated magic. What further distinguishes Bright Lights as an epic guide to the celestial constellations of our world is that through its despondent Joy Division tangents and lush episodes of strangled guitar chords there is always a sense of true beauty – untainted by our world of corrupted ideals and conformed beliefs. Ignoring trends, buzz and hype of every kind, Interpol mends haunting and moody aesthetics into a transcendent musical endeavor that surges with human emotion as its spinal cord. Now, maybe it’s just me, but it’s been far too long since something like that has not only been upheld, but truly advocated. [www.interpolny.com]