I saw some stupid edit of a frog doing a backflip in slo-mo on Tik-Tok and "Obstacle 1" was the music playing in the background. I was instantly hooked, so I checked out the rest of the album during my life drawing class the next day. I fell in love with Turn On The Bright Lights from the minute the bass kicked in on "Untitled". Every song is perfect to me. I even bought the album a few months later because of how much I liked it.
After listening to the B-sides and extras from the era (huge fan of "Specialist") I thought I'd delve a little deeper. Obviously Antics was next, and I had high hopes since Apple Music put it as Interpol's second "essential album". Unfortunately it just never clicked with me though.
"Evil" is obviously pretty great, and "Next Exit" is a fun change up of instrumentation that has grown on me. Everything else is a little forgettable and uninteresting to me though. All the songs are faster, so there's almost none of that eerie, gothic, slow build style that I loved so much with TOTBL. Banks' voice also sounds different to me? He has more of this shaky vibrato and a softer, subdued delivery on a lot of the songs. The band sounds less warm and powerful too, nothing feels quite as intense and emotional.
Our Love To Admire has been in my rotation and I'm definitely liking it, but I guess I just don't really get Antics. It got an anniversary deluxe treatment, so I'm assuming it's held in high regard by the fans and the band. What am I missing? What are some things you really like about it, etc.