Interpol: Marauder (cream vinyl) [MATADOR]

Why you'll love it

This is the limited indie exclusive cream vinyl edition, with a printed lyric inner sleeve and a download code. Dave Fridmann recorded the band straight to two-inch tape, and the result is Interpol at their most raw and direct.

This edition

• Cream vinyl
• Indie exclusive
• Printed lyric inner sleeve
• Download card included

About the album

Most bands spend their sixth album fussing over every take. Interpol went the other way. Producer Dave Fridmann, the man behind The Flaming Lips and MGMT records, insisted on recording to two-inch tape at his Tarbox Road studio in Cassadaga, New York, so the band had to nail each performance rather than fix it later. Guitarist Daniel Kessler called it a raw record-making experience, and you can hear it.

Paul Banks sounds looser and more urgent than ever, and Kessler's guitars cut and spiral around a rhythm section that pushes hard. "The Rover" is a driving, wiry single, "If You Really Love Nothing" opens the album with a sly groove, and "Number 10" and "Complications" show off that taut, propulsive New York sound the band built its name on. Two short interludes give the record room to breathe.

The cover is a Garry Winogrand photograph, and the band teased the album with cryptic murals and a secret event in Mexico City. Cryptic murals are a fine way to keep a city guessing, and considerably harder to skip than an advert.

Also at Kops: more Interpol on vinyl · browse Alternative

Tracklist

Listen

On Matador (cat# OLE-1124-0), the 2018 album.