Early July I'm up in the Chronicle office and, surprise, U2 isn't blaring out like the perpetual sermon, but instead WXDU sends me a sign. A sweeping melody swirling in waves of guitar reverb, and a guy singing about New York City who sounded like he knew it all too well: "The subway, she is a porno/and the pavements are a mess/I know you?ve supported me for a long time/somehow I?m not impressed." It chimed, and it soared, and I sat blinking in front of the monitor in a bit of awe. Tower View editor Matt Atwood was the only other person in the room, and as the man on the radio crooned like a distant ambulance, crying "It?s up to me now/Turn on the bright lights," I thought I saw a single tear roll down Mattwood's quivering babyface.
A quick phone call to XDU and the DJ says the band is Interpol, and I go "Oh, rock on," and hang up like of course I know Interpol--who wouldn?t know Interpol? A song like that only comes from a great band that everyone knows and loves and makes love to. Secretly my head is hung in shame like I failed some hip test, and when the DJ comes back on the air he says "You just heard 'NYC' by Interpol. We just had three calls about that one--never happened on this show before."
Later that day, at Radio Free Records' reopening, Viva pops in something on the box and the roomful of shoppers start bobbing their heads. Rip currents of whitewater guitar and a turbulent rhythm undertow tug at you to dance but something in the guy's deadpan voice warns against it. You wouldn't want to make love to it, but it might be the soundtrack to sweaty, running dreams. "Interpol, man," Viva says to a couple of roused browsers who nod sagely as he adds, sideways, "Gonna be huge."
Gonna be. Interpol already loomed huge, rocking all over XDU for the next couple of weeks and then, right on time, the indie presses collectively sneezed and a million name drops of Joy Division hit the glass. But it's some kind of aural illusion: A double take says Interpol sounds nothing at all like Joy Division--bleak, gloomy, maybe not cloaked in black, but rather in thick and busy shades of vibrant gray.
Sure, we could lay blame with 80s names: Singer Paul Banks channels David Byrne and Morrissey as deftly as he does Ian Curtis. In fact, "Say Hello to the Angels" at first sounds like a Smiths homage--if not cover--but it could just as easily be the Strokes if they woke up one day with a mild hangover and a pounding existential crisis. I could go on with all the great late 90s guitar bands that Interpol also brings to mind--and looks ready to someday surpass. But such hypemongering would be crude and disrespectful. After all, we're talking about the debut album of the year here.
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