Interpol: Antics [MATADOR]

Why you'll love it

This Matador reissue brings back the New York band's commercial breakthrough. It peaked at No. 15 on the Billboard 200, went gold in the US, and Drowned in Sound named it the best album of 2004.

This edition

• Stereo mix

About the album

Paul Banks has called Antics the perfect antidote to the sophomore slump, and he had a point. After the shadowy, much-loved Turn On the Bright Lights, Interpol came back two years later sounding warmer, nimbler and a good deal more confident. Banks has since named it his favourite of the band's albums, and said he put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into it.

"Slow Hands" and "Not Even Jail" hit hard, the kind of tightly wound guitar songs that had been sharpened on the road, while "Evil" turns a dark story into a sing-along. A nautical thread runs through "Take You On A Cruise," "Public Pervert" and "A Time To Be So Small." Critics noticed the change: the Village Voice praised the band's increasingly precise post-punk throb, Uncut called it exhilarating, morbid, romantic and cool, and Metacritic logged a score of 80.

Four singles came off it, and "Slow Hands" became one of the band's signature songs. The original packaging hid the word antics in Morse code, which, for a band this sharply dressed, counts as letting their hair down.

Also at Kops: more Interpol on vinyl · browse Alternative

Tracklist

Listen

On Matador (cat# OLE-616-0), a reissue of the 2004 album.