Review of Our Love to Admire

For those who found Interpol’s Antics a pale follow-up to a fine debut, breathe easy, it’s “back to form” time. The mope rock returns straight off the top with the brooding “Pioneer to the Falls,” but this set of songs packs a lot of punch, thanks to guitar work that’s alternately mournful, melodic and adrenaline-driven, not to mention obvious production prowess that boosts the riffs and the back end, and takes the edge off Paul Banks’s nasal Ian Curtis echo. Capping the reverberating rockers and tightly coiled pop songs is another downbeat masterpiece, “The Lighthouse,” a beautiful anthemic dirge.

9/10