Interpol: Antics and The Killers: Hot Fuss

By RUSSELL BAILLIE

Interpol: Antics

(Herald rating: * * * * )

(Rhythm Method/ Matador)



The Killers: Hot Fuss

(Herald rating: * * )

(island)


If you look hard enough, every rock decade is getting its own revival. Some are just more fashionable than others.

And right now in America, in the wide territory between the MTV mainstream and the underground, the early 80s is being rewired, reconsidered and rehashed by a bunch of bands.

Most of them, like Interpol, come from New York but seem to wish they were hanging about in Manchester 20 years ago (see also the Strokes, Walkmen, stellarstarr, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and the Rapture).

Of course, as Brits Franz Ferdinand's Mercury Prize-winning album shows with its own echoes of the Thatcher era, it's not all happening on the west shore of the Atlantic.

But there's something intriguing about this delayed American rock response to Brit scenes of the past which never made much impression on the US first time around. It happened in 90s' California with many a band taking its cue from the late 70s' British ska boom.

Now the time warp brings us Interpol, a black-clad, tie-wearing quartet whose music suggests an expert knowledge of the collected works of Joy Division, Gang of Four and Echo and the Bunnymen.

And then there are the Killers from Las Vegas, another foursome whose sound is a more dayglo affair.

Next big things? Well, apparently enough to warrant the unknown Vegas mob appearing on the front of local music mag Real Groove, while Interpol are reportedly destined for the front of the next Rip It Up.

Interpol, though, have already proved they're not just flavour of the month with their debut album, 2002's Turn On The Bright Lights, which found a big following Stateside and further afield, even among those who still treasure their battered vinyl copy of Joy Division's Closer.

The follow-up Antics is equally impressive for its gripping if monochromatic songs, austere atmosphere and the intense figure cut by singer Paul Banks.

He may echo the trademark megaphone bark of the late Joy Division singer Ian Curtis, but Banks' delivery is increasingly tempered with wistful tones capable of some airy tunes. Public Pervert, despite its name, starts as a sweetly askew love ballad before building into a hydraulic-strength chorus.

The band's slow-fused dynamics make Antics, if not a joyride, a consistent dark thrill. That's at its best on opener Next Exit, which features Jesus and Mary Chain memorial tambourine behind portentous piano, organ and synth).

There's a fine sense of surge on Take You On A Cruise which namechecks Fred Astaire, turns into Roxanne for a few bars (well, Interpol is a "Police" organisation, huh?) while getting rather existential over holiday plans.

And Not Even Jail gives the 10 tracks an impressively monolithic centre.

But there are foot-tappers aplenty among the wrist-slashers. Narc neatly matches percolating bass to soaring angst-laden chorus; Slow Hands offers gothic disco-rock and C'mere has a Ferdinand-ish upbeat mood contrasting nicely with its tragic-romantic lyrics.

It fails to finish as well as it started, with a couple of deathless tracks near the end sounding like they probably work a treat live with dry ice and spotlights. And while Interpol might come on like Ferdinand's glum American cousins they do have the knack of making their brand of gloom sound both deadly glamorous and heartfelt.

On the other hand, the Killers come with more than a faint smell of schtick on their debut album. They might sound like a band whose influences hark back to when every band had a one-finger synthesiser player in the corner.

But they also remind of many a forgotten American band of the Reagan era whose names often ended with an "X". Much of Hot Fuss makes the likes of the Dandy Warhols embracing the Duran Duran era on their last album look mild by comparison.

That's apparent from the opener Jenny Was A Friend of Mine in which they rewrite DD's Planet Earth with curious lyrics: "We had a fight out on the promenade out in the rain," sings Brandon Flowers, bravely for a man from Las Vegas.

It's at its fleeting best on Somebody Told Me, which is enjoyable in a Franz Ferdinand New Wave disco kind of way with its amusingly gender-confused chorus ("Somebody told me you had a boyfriend who looked a girlfriend that I had in February for last year").

But there are so many mediocre-to-awful moments and too many lyrics that sound like script treatments for videos. All that makes so much of this album unforgiveable. Among them is Smile Like you Mean It (an ironic ode to sincerity from a band not very big on sincerity), Mr Brightside (Blondie's Atomic as covered by INXS), All These Things That I've Done (bad 80s Bowie with a punsome gospel chorus: "I've got soul but I'm not a soldier"), and the truly terrible Glamorous Indie Rock & Roll ("It's indie rock'n'roll for me/It's all I need".

They could, at a pinch, provide the entire soundtrack to The Wedding Singer II. But the Killers just remind you of the worst night of Radio With Pictures.