Julian Plenti : Is… Skyscraper

<img src="http://www.qromag.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/julianplentiisskyscraper.jpg" alt=" " />Interpol's Paul Banks actually goes wider, not taller, on his solo debut as Julian Plenti, <i>Is... Skyscraper</i>. ...
7.4 Matador
2009 

Julian Plenti : Is... Skyscraper It’s been a while since we’ve heard anything from Interpol.  After the middling-to-poor reaction to their 2007 major label debut, Our Love To Admire (QRO review), little has been heard from the band that was part of the first wave of this decade’s ‘indie return’, back in 2002 with Turn On the Bright Lights.  Now singer/guitarist Paul Banks, at least, is coming out of hiding, albeit under the pseudonym ‘Julian Plenti’, for Is… Skyscraper.  Returning to indie imprint Matador, Banks strips down Interpol’s sound, while widening its breadth, for a mixed, but altogether interesting solo record.

Interpol certainly did need some stripping down after Our Love To Admire, which saw Banks & guitarist Daniel Kessler’s guitars overwhelm the rhythm that used to be their base.  It isn’t surprising that solo, a singer would bring such elements down, but Banks has brought them way down, leaving the restrained guitars in their high notes, creating a more haunting sound, when laid between pressing rhythm and Banks’ up-close vocals.  It all creates a great interplay of high & low, loud & soft on opener “Only If You Run”.

From that highpoint, though, Banks is never quite able to so fully scale the stark Skyscraper.  Sometimes he falls back on getting more rockin’, but those few times (such as “Games For Days” and “Unwind”) are limited enough that they come off pretty well.  Less so is when Banks adds more unusual instrumentation – there are too many synth sounds on “Fun That We Have”, and there was no real need for the strings & woodwinds in “On the Esplanade” (but just adding strings does work better for the preceding “Girl On the Sporting News”).  Finisher “H” is just chock-a-block with unusual instrumentation, making one wish the superior, and prior, “Fly As You Might” was the closer, thanks to its dark restraint marrying a press-beat to echoing guitar moments.

Like Our Love To Admire, Is… Skyscraper isn’t going to make you forget about Turn On the Bright Lights – not even the band’s disappearance could quite do that.  But while Love reached for the stars and failed to hold onto what Interpol already had, Banks is much more tentative as Julian Plenti, going wide instead of tall – not the next Interpol album, but definitely a welcome solo debut.

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