Album review: Interpol's The Other Side of Make-Believe is enjoyable but unspectacular

Interpol: The Other Side of Make-Believe album ed power review

Interpol

The Other Side of Make-Believe

★★★☆☆

Alongside The Strokes’ Is This It, Interpol’s 2002 debut, Turn on The Bright Lights, remains a defining document of the early 21st-century indie rock renaissance. And just like The Strokes, the New York-based group has sometimes seemed at a loss as to how to move on from a near-perfect first record.

But if they’re never quite recovered the zeitgeisty mojo that made Turn on the Bright Lights so irresistible they have demonstrated an admirable commitment to simply slogging on. Their seventh album highlights the positives and negatives of that outlook.

As with many bands who peak early, with their later output Interpol can sometimes feel caught in a whirlpool of former glories. But there are moments when The Other Side Of Make-Believe outruns Interpol’s past. Piano-fuelled single, 'Toni', for instance is destined to join the line-up second-tier Interpol favourites (alongside almost-hits 'The Heinrich Maneuver' and 'All The Rage Back Home').

Interpol at full flight have a gift for propulsive moroseness and that magic is captured anew on 'Fables' where Daniel Kessler’s spooky guitars intertwine with Paul Banks’ earnestly bleak vocals. Even better is 'Renegade Hearts', built around one of those cinematic Kessler riffs that have been an Interpol hallmark all the way back to Bright Lights.

But there longueurs, too, on a project that started in lockdown, with Kessler, Banks and drummer Sam Fogarino initially working in separate locations. A whiff of Joshua Tree pastiche hangs around 'Gran Hotel'; 'Big Shot City' meanders into a dead end of synthesisers and bleary guitars.

Had Interpol broken up in 2003, they would have gone down as one of the most iconic groups of their era. Instead, they have decided that they want to be around for the long haul. That ubiquity has corroded their mythology, it can be argued. But the upside is that fans can count on an enjoyable, albeit unspectacular, new record such as The Other Side Of Make-Believe arriving every few years. With the band continuing to press on, it feels mean-spirited to gripe at their descent towards mediocrity.