From the beginning, Interpol seemed a little too big for the underground. Their sound was familiar, but well-defined; even more so was their aesthetic, as the band wore the same suits for entire tours and kept the design of their releases minimal and uniform, like the austere jangle of their songs. The warm reception to their debut album, Turn on the Bright Lights, was almost a matter of course. As their audience grew, their music toed the line between consistency and stasis, while the band released singles, EPs and expanded reissues with the zeal of more popular mainstream acts.
This six-song live release is the latest example of Interpol carefully extending their brand without changing much with the music therein. Yet the choice to release this only via iTunes and selectively chosen independent brick-and-mortar record stores is a curious concession to an audience they've spent a lot of time and energy trying to grow beyond.
It's no surprise that the tracklist leans towards the band's most recent record, but for the most part the EP's inclusions are exceptional. The bad: Starting with Our Love to Admire's tepid opener, "Pioneer to the Falls"-- its extended organ intro/audience tease might be more captivating than the song itself-- and the band's least exciting single to date, "The Heinrich Maneuver". But even those songs radiate more emotion from singer Paul Banks and sterner performances from their MVP rhythm section than they do on record. Rather than the singles, or any material at all, from Antics, Live puts OLTA's best tracks next to a furious reading of their signature hit, "Obstacle 1", and Turn on the Bright Lights favorite "Stella Was a Diver and She Was Always Down". If you'd just tuned in, you might mistake their new material for being just as worthy as these older tracks that still hold up rather well. It makes for a canny bit of career summation and, consciously or not, it sends a message to fans who may have lost faith.
And for the most part, the gambit pays off. Freed from it's ponderous bookends on OLTA, "Mammoth" sounds as propulsive as it should be, and "Rest My Chemistry" becomes the eagerly anticipated late-setlist highlight, its flirtatious and cocksure charm so pronounced you won't care the whether the lyrics are about groupies or not.
Yet anyone who's actually seen the band-- and with the glut of international festivals they've played, chances are you have-- knows this isn't entirely representative of Interpol's shows. Their setlists are obstinate (even "Stella" is a near-perpetual choice for their encore), and their performances err on the side of accurate as opposed to passionate-- they sound pretty much like they do on record. (Then again, maybe one should be careful what one wishes for.) Perhaps the concert at London's Astoria that these songs were taken from was a very special night (and they could have given us the whole performance if so), but as any sort of document, it seems like a bit of a cheat. The EP isn't quite essential, but far more considered than most of their extraneous releases, and it's hard to complain when, for once, the price is right, and it might get someone back into an actual record store at the same time.
