20 years ago today, Interpol released their epic debut album: Turn On the Bright Lights.
Upon release, the record peaked at number 101 on the UK Albums Chart. It reached number 158 on the Billboard 200 in the US, as well as spending 73 weeks on the Billboard Independent Albums, peaking at number 5.
Turn On the Bright Lights was released to critical acclaim. “It is,” Pitchfork wrote, “wrought with emotional disconnection and faded glory, epic sweep and intimate catharsis. It is an incredibly powerful and affecting album. Loss, regret, and a minor key brilliantly permeate jangling guitars and rhythmic and tonal shiftsâand although it’s no Closer or OK Computer, it’s not unthinkable that this band might aspire to such heights.
The Austin Chronicle cited “melodic Peter Hook-like basslines; the divine shoegazer textures of My Bloody Valentine and Ride; a peppy, Strokes-like bounce; and a singer who’s a dead ringer of Ian Curtis. While Blender stated, “It’s almost as if Ian Curtis never hanged himself,” adding that Paul Banks’ vocals channeled Curtis’ “gloomy moan”.
Turn On the Bright Lights has been seen as helping define 2000s indie rock, and Interpol have been cited as helping usher in the New York-born post-punk revival, along with contemporaries such as the Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and TV on the Radio. It has also been considered as an influence on many indie rock bands, including The Killers, Editors, the xx, the Organ, She Wants Revenge, and others to the extent that many of these band have been disparagingly referred to as “Interpol clones”.
Saw Interpol a few years ago in Singapore during Neon Lights festival. Let’s hope they’ll come to Australasia next year!
The video below, The Killers cover one of Turn On the Bright Lights‘ main single, “Obstacle 1”, June 2016.
How ya like it? Not better than the original version?
Read also INTERPOL: ALL THE RAGE BACK HOME.
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Sources: Wikipedia, Stereogum, Blender, The Austin Chronicle.
