Interpol

Want to hear what the Chameleons might sound like had Joy Division's Ian Curtis lived? If he had spent the '80s bicycling from Stockport up to Middleton and Rochdale, relieving Mark Burgess of vocal duties instead of gracing the iconic T-shirts of grieving admirers? Forgive a writer who hears his virtual aural twin coming out of the speakers, singing in an exact same traumatic manner. It's uncanny. And as for the other reference, if the excellent "Song Seven" or "A Time to Be So Small" weren't inspired by Script of the Bridge (they sure could pass for outtakes), then that too is an accident of highly remarkable coincidence. So why pay any attention to this new New York's outfit's four-song EP if it's so past-gazing and too-familiar? Because they're so good at it. Interpol sound more like a first-round draft pick who already can at least hold the court/field/rink/pitch with the veteran stars -- and you can easily see them getting there with some seasoning. The recording on songs like "PDA" is bright and crystalline gorgeous, the arrangements are fresh and interesting, the songs are well-developed, and the singing by the uncredited Curtis clone has the original's same jarring quality to get into places of yours you prefer not to play with. This is a highly accomplished, pretty, sonorously moving EP. Most New York bands since 1985 have shunned guitar effects that might get them branded Anglophiles, as if an effects box or an amp setting has a nationality. Hope that prosaic myopia is going the way of heroin chic. ~ Jack Rabid, Rovi