Pat as-above-so-below-isms like “the title says it all” normally drive me up the wall, but whaddayagonnado: “Pace Is the Trick” is the best Interpol song because of the rigorous and relentless pace of the guitar. The song itself is a midtempo number and not one of the band’s uptempo post-punk jams, but that distinctively brassy guitar never, ever ceases to be twanged with every eighth note. Like a traditional lead guitar line, each note is distinct, and the purpose is to deliver a melody; at the same time, like rhythm guitar, it’s a rhythmic element that gives the entire song a spine, even as its melody shifts and morphs from section to section. This pulls all the parts together and makes each new section and mood — determined by the varying timbre and intensity of Paul Banks’s vocals, the disappearances and reappearances of Sam Fogarino’s drums and the different beats he plays, and the degree to which the full band is engaged or holding back — feel like an inevitable outgrowth of the previous one. It’s one of those songs that makes me reflexively air-drum along when the loud parts kick in, and it’s that guitar, that literally non-stop “dundundundundundundundundundundundundundundundun,” that pulls me along for the ride. Meanwhile, Banks’s lyrics, delivered in perhaps his most finely struck balance between his laconic-croon and urgent-shout modes, use a variety of metaphors and outright declarations to cast love, or at least lust, as a matter of possession, predation, and destruction. As embodied in the song’s final lines — after ending the final iteration of the chorus (“and now I select you” etc.) by shouting about “the star-swept night,” Banks contributes to the lengthy outro by repeating “You don’t hold a candle” — it’s an enticingly toxic blend of seduction and contempt, tied together by a guitar that never allows any daylight between the two extremes.
Tags: Interpol, music, music reviews, Our Love to Admire, Pace Is the Trick, reviews