Yahoo! Music Review

Gig played on 29/11/07

Interpol at Alexandra Palace ought, you'd think, make for a fine aesthetical union. The grandiose Victorian architecture rising high above the vast panorama of London's lights twinkling in the dark, as the transmission tower sends its invisible signals out into the night sky, conjures a deeply appealing atmosphere and one that ought to suit Interpol to a tee. Yet it never quite works. For Alexandra Palace is a hollow, soulless place complete with a massive Carlsberg tanker spewing forth bad lager, and the all-pervading stench of frying donuts. Interpol's arch romance this is not.

Even worse, and the crucial flaw tonight, is the sound. Paul Banks' vocals might by crystal clear, but the drums sound like the thwacking of custard tarts, while the guitars scratch around and never gel with the recent addition of a fifth member on keyboard. The bass, meanwhile, is barely audible. Nevertheless, the band look terrific, dressed in trademark black after an unfortunate recent flirtation with jeans and jumpers. Carlos D, though, has swapped his sinister togs for a black cardigan and red shirt, looking for all the world as if he'd hopped onto a U-Boat for retirement in Argentina, sometime in the spring of 1945.

Of course, it'd be churlish to resent Interpol's rise to a bigger, more mainstream audience. In the past year or so, they have been rather usurped by Editors, who took the New Yorker's dark gothisms and made them palatable for Coldplay fans; that Alexandra Palace is full tonight suggests Paul Banks & co haven't entirely lost out. Yet on much of the material aired, you'd be hard pushed to spot the difference between the two bands. The trouble is third album "Our Love To Admire" simply isn't as good as "Turn On The Bright Lights" or "Antics", the sound and lyrics wearily becoming cliché and self-parody.

So "Obstacle 1" and "Slow Hands" stand out as brilliant moments amid a sea of moping drudgery - especially bad is "Lighthouse", which emerges out of an interminable "noise" segment that's frankly embarrassing. Interpol seem to be running out of ideas and simply lack the presence to be able to fill such a large venue with what ought to be epic, ornate sound. The contrast between material old and new is starkest at the end of the set, where Interpol close with three songs from their debut and one off "Antics".

They deliver "Not Even Jail", "Untitled", "Stella Was A Diver" and "PDA" with a clarity, sincerity and panache that's largely been absent through the rest of the evening. Unfortunately, many have missed the late resurgence, streaming through the doors of the Alexandra Palace into the cold North London night.

by Luke Turner