This Mirror Weighs a Ton

While indie-sleaze Instagram accounts and Just Like Heaven festival lineups allow millennial music fans to easily revisit the mid-2000s, post-Y2K post-punkers Interpol refuse to look back. Sure, certain aspects of the group’s sound—Paul Banks’ stern yet sensitive voice, Daniel Kessler’s dark yet dreamy guitar lines, and that ever-present nocturnal NYC atmosphere—have remained undisturbed by the passage of time. But on their eighth album, This Mirror Weighs a Ton, those sturdy sonic signatures serve as the anchors that allow Interpol to further stretch their aesthetic while still holding onto their essential doomed-romantic identity, be it through the smoky trip-hop of the title track “This Mirror Weighs a Ton,” the reggae-tinged grooves of “Wounded Soldier,” the sound-collage piano balladry of “Sudden,” and the prickly disco gallop of “Wake Up,” which is closer to an early-2000s dance-punk track than anything Interpol actually recorded in that era. That said, if you’re still pining for the Interpol of old, the wiry rocker (and rare Banks/Kessler vocal duet) “See Out Loud” provides the necessary adrenaline shot to get your slow hands clapping more vigorously. Our Favourite Track: On an album rife with intriguing stylistic detours, the bossa nova Paul Banks of “So Rides the Reindeer” just might be the most alluring.