Interpol – This Mirror Weighs a Ton

For a decade and a half, NYC indie veterans Interpol felt like they were spinning their wheels. While their 2010s and early 2020s output had highlights, the band seemed to struggle to recapture the magic of their 2000s work, with original bassist Carlos Dengler’s departure casting a long shadow over the remaining members that they could never fully escape. Perhaps it's the full-time recruitment of bassist Brad Truax and keyboardist Brandon Curtis, or the label move to Partisan, or recording in their native NYC for the first time in years with Andrew Wyatt (ROSALÍA, Charli xcx), or all of the above that leaves their eighth record, This Mirror Weighs a Ton, sounding their most refreshed in over 15 years.

This is the sound of a band evolving while revisiting what made them special in the first place. Across the album’s opening two tracks, the title track and See Out Loud, Interpol immediately display this tension. The opener is an eerie, atmospheric, spatially ambitious track, while the subsequent song provides a classic slice of tightly driven, multi-layered, propulsive post-punk fans adore them for.

Elsewhere, Wings On Fire offers a hard-hitting yet funky and danceable tune, whereas So Rides The Reindeer features Interpol’s first track based around an acoustic guitar and gleefully rues in Wyatt’s pop production wizardry. This Mirror Weighs a Ton isn’t perfect, and it does slightly run out of steam towards its back half. However, it recovers in the final one-two gut punch of the Antics-feeling Bird and The Serpent and the piano-led Sudden. Regardless, it's incredibly pleasing to hear these indie stalwarts sounding so revitalised after such a long drought. Long may it continue.

Listen to: See Out Loud, Wings On Fire, Bird and The Serpent