Sounds better at full quality, but feels awfully half-baked.

The production's been much kinder to their sound on this go around; the rhythym section has been restored somewhat and the experiments with orchestration have been firmly put to bed. Banks's voice shows a little more range but he's not pushed right to the front of the mix, allowing us to gloss over some of his more...Banksian lyrics..."you had great style, and style is worthwhile", indeed.

They've made a concerted effort to 'progress', but some of these songs truly flounder and go nowhere. Certainly the anthemic aspirations of OLTA seemed to suit their writing style better than the avant gard goals of 'Interpol'.

The mood is right, which is what 'Love' was lacking, but it evokes nothing. The mood, the songs, just sit there in most cases. The ones that don't sit stand; stand out so much as to make it a disjointed listen.

It's clear to see why Capitol wanted no part of this record, and it is a brave release. It's just so frustrating to see that if they could have married some traits from OLTA and this self-titled, they'd have a blinder on their hands. As it is, the good parts of OLTA aren't on 'Interpol' and vice versa.

I think they'll be back to angular rock next time, with all this effort at progression going to show they had it right first time. And goodness knows what kind of live show they'll have now, with no Carlos and a set of mid-paced soupy stuff.