oh boy, i have quite the story with interpol. by the middle of freshman year, so around early 2024, i was looking through apple’s genre ‘stations’: basically, extended playlists with songs that are supposed to characterize a genre of music. once, i was curious, so i happened upon the ‘classic indie’ station. i think it’s impossible to define all of indie with an extended playlist now, but bear with me. i found “NYC” in the middle of the night and cried for the first time in months. pretty embarrassing, freshman me. but i loved “NYC” so much i listened to the rest of Turn On the Bright Lights, and it became my favorite album for nearly two years, even as i started listening to other genres. so i would have to at least talk about one of its tracks eventually!
interpol, at least on Turn On the Bright Lights, has the weird ability to make nonsensical lyrics seem meaningful through their music, and “Obstacle 1” is a good demonstration of this. i will never know what “[making] playing only logical harm” is, but i do know there is some kind of infinite longing and sadness in those words.
but of course, the instrumentation is the real highlight of this song. the bass almost acts as the lead guitar in this song, playing most of the melody lines, while high-pitched guitars punctuate the verses and melody. the drumming is precise and minimalistic, helping to transition from one part of the song to the next. paul banks’ vocal melodies are elegant enough so that i can ignore the fact he’s singing nonsense. what impresses me the most is how interpol is able to sound so expansive and looming and sad and cathartic in this song with just what, reverb and some very modest distortion? basically, each individual part isn’t too special, but it’s the cohesiveness and control that makes tracks like this such a rare find. give it a listen if you haven’t already!
q-street 