THE BLACK EP-INTERPOL

The Black EP-
Interpol
Label-EMI
Status-Out as of 2003
Rating-3 Feathers

After the huge success of Turn on the Bright Lights, Interpol went on a world tour. It took them into France and one of the destinations was Radio France where Interpol recorded ‘The Black Sessions’, a set of live recordings put out as an EP. ‘Say Hello to The Angels’ is the only recording on this EP that’s the same recording as it was on the album. It’s an alright song sounding very similar to The Strokes. But something about it just doesn’t go well my equilibrium making me a little woozy. I don’t get why they chose this song being that it was one of the worse songs on Turn on the Bright Lights. ‘NYC [Demo Version]’: From my experience on listening to demos, they usually present a different arrangement of the song or a more raw version. This one however, is pretty close to how the album version is, and I must say, it’s pretty good for a demo. The drums specifically are really clear and sound really good. ‘Obstacle 1 [Black Session]’ is not as stunning as one would hope. The album version is pure joy and magic, but only the instrumentation is decent, and even then the guitar and drum mixing is way off. The vocals just sound terribly off. I’ve never heard ‘Specialist [Black Session]’ before, but from my knowledge it’s a well-known b-side. I can easily see why it never actually made it onto the album. It lasts about a minute and a half too long, and the obscurely clever lyrics are the only thing you can cling to. ‘Leif Erikson [Black Session]’ is possibly the best performance on this album. They’ve almost perfected transferring the sound of the album recording into a live performance. The only beef one could possibly have with this is that the mixing of instruments versus vocals is off. ‘PDA [Black Session]’ is another very good performance, except for the fact that they sped through the beginning bit and Paul sounds like he can’t breath. The solo at the end is very well done and at the exact right speed. Overall, this EP was ok. The mixing was blatantly off, probably because the lot of it was recorded at a radio station, but you could still see that they were pretty sound performances. This early in a bands career, you typically wouldn’t see them put out a live recording until they’ve gained sure promise or are a couple albums in. Banking on there success, Interpol did it anyway. I wouldn’t suggest this for you average music listener or a casual fan, however, die hard Interpol fans should definitely add this not-so-rarity to their collection.

"They had this little park with deer in it and I fed deer every day. How rock 'n' roll is that?"-Sam Fogarino

Video for NYC

Recommendations: NYC [Demo], Leif Erikson [Black Session], PDA [Black Session]
Interpol's Official Website
Note: I bought this in Best Buy, can you believe it?! Very rarely do they have EP's or singles, but they had this and I flipped so I had to get it. I'm going to review Visiter by The Dodos next in the coming week, I hope. Enjoy!