There was a time when calling Interpol one of the most important bands of the early 2000s didn’t require much explanation. Ah… those were the days. Alongside The Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, LCD Soundsystem, and a handful of other New York City acts, they helped turn the downtown rock scene into the center of everything cool in the musical universe. Their 2002 debut effort, Turn on the Bright Lights, was an album teeming with existential dread, sounding as if it were beamed in from a darker decade in history, while befitting the era perfectly.
Twenty-four years later, Interpol are still at it, playing Roadrunner tonight (October 4), which is pretty impressive considering how many of their peers have broken up, gone on indefinite hiatus, or embarrassingly fallen into the predictable trappings of success. OG members Paul Banks, Daniel Kessler, and Sam Fogarino are now touring behind their eighth album, This Mirror Weighs a Ton, and first since 2022’s The Other Side of Make-Believe. Like the bulk of the band’s catalog, it dropped toward the end of summer, setting the stage for a slate of shows in the fall, a time when that type of disaffected cool just feels right to witness live.
The new LP marks the first time Interpol recorded in New York City in more than a decade, and while nobody is going to mistake This Mirror Weighs a Ton for a sudden Interpol genre pivot, there are some new wrinkles. Producer du jour Andrew Wyatt helped expand the usual guitars-and-gloom palette with synths, strings, woodwinds, and other studio touches, while longtime touring bassist Brad Truax and guitarist Brandon Curtis are now official members. And guitarist Kessler – whose fancy footwork is a primary reason to check out an Interpol performance in the first place – even takes a turn at the microphone on “See Out Loud.”
The new material is only part of the reason to show up, and though the group’s last time through, at Roadrunner in 2024, saw them play their sophomore album Antics in full, these gigs have been much more well-rounded with a wealth of post-punk revival anthems including [spoiler alert!] “C’mere,” “PDA,” “The New,” and “All the Rage Back Home.”
Support comes from Brooklyn shoegaze act DIIV, who have been making their own brand of hazy, guitar-heavy noise for more than a decade, with their own new offerings, and it all makes for a perfect autumn evening to spend surrounded by distorted guitars and shuddersome angst.
INTERPOL + DIIV :: Sunday, October 4 at Roadrunner, 89 Guest St. in Boston, MA :: 8 p.m., all ages, $109.71 to $226.58 :: Event info :: Advance tickets