Our Love To Admire isn't out for a couple of weeks, but the chatter about the Cure, extra creepiness, and added accents/atmospherics -- while basically true -- is already tired. At least it's more interesting than discussing Interpol's suits and drink hangouts, or rehashing New York's post-punk renaissance. Three years have passed since Antics and a lot's changed -- the same can't be said for the NY quartet's third album. These older, hairier, dog-owning dudes basically sound the same except when they opt to take their sweet, melancholic time, allowing things to unfurl unhurriedly.
Major label deals can result in chancier recordings: Something to prove? Bigger budget? More time? Our Love's occasional new-romantic expansiveness and molasses pacing is likely the result of group maturity/chemistry mixed with all of the above (one also wonders the effects of Carlo D's stache).Whatever the case, Our Love's longest, languorous songs -- those given space to build (i.e. the ones folks may consider boring) -- are the record's truly captivating hooks. On the other hand, the quick, jagged numbers/mid-tempo tracks can be ear candy (a restless Joy Division haunts old timey, strong first single "The Heinrich Maneuver") or occasionally compelling (would someone with better math skills please chart the woozy energy of "Mammoth" or, bad title and all, the lovely non-arc of "No I in Threesome"?), but quite a few of the pithier tracks pass without much impact (see "Who Do You Think?," "Scale").
Caveats, Ian Curtis allusions, greyhound jokes, and mustache cracks aside, the record begins and ends wonderfully. Opener "Pioneer To The Falls" sets the mood with its chiming guitars and pseudo-devotional lyrics ("Show me the dirt pile, and I will pray that the soul can take / three stowaways"); over six minutes it assembles an elegant edifice with strings, horns, and major sonic 'n' emotional dynamics. A repeated "you fly straight into my heart" -- each time more plaintive-triumphant -- is followed up by cascading guitars, a dramatically intoned "here comes the fall," and a pitch-perfect, soulful tempo shift.At album's end "Wrecking Ball" steers razor-sharp guitar notes, cavernous vocal melodies ("Nobody warned you / Nobody told you / To make up your mind / Nobody told you / That I could just walk through / And shake up your style"), swooning backup harmonies, and a strangely placed orchestral echo (and exit) into a gentle collision with the distant, fluttering fits of "The Lighthouse" (Anyone else hear a little "Creep" fighting against those introductory stabbing, star-shower guitars?).Each of these tunes gain momentum and strength with repetition -- a rhythmic oomph remains despite the snail's pace, making the tinier numbers feel minor in comparison. Although the cover art's allegedly borrowed, it's important to note that these sprawling mini-epics feel like the quartet's own, albeit, yeah, with Mary Chain, Psych Furs and Bunnymen shading.And Pixies -- "Rest My Chemistry" sports a"Where Is My Mind?" guitar dart that flits behind Paul's appealingly bad poetry ("You look so young / like a daisy in my lazy eye," etc).
So, no, don't turn on the bright lights, Interpol: Follow a less-hackneyed path into the future. Our Love To Admire can be a drag, but it works when it sounds like the band's stuck in a room, absorbed in the sound, playing entirely for themselves, experimenting. That's a start. Now let things drift some more. Repeat.
Our Love To Admire is out 7/10 on Capitol.
