Writing Better Interpol songs than Interpol? (VillageVoice)

[obiwankobe]

The Double
Knitting Factory
December 5

Download: "Blanket on the Beach" [from the Palm Fronds LP on Catsup Plate]
Download: Idiocy" [from the Loose in the Air LP on Matador]

Said this before when the Double opened for the Black Dice at Irving, but goddamn, has it actually become stone-set protocol for an indie label's smaller bands to chimp the flagships? Thunderbirds grab at Les Savy Fav, off the top my nog, J.R. Writer at Killa, Rogue Wave at Shins, and here the Double really have their Interpolisms down like a motherfucker. "Idiocy" off Loose has those sixteenths over two cymbals bits that "Narc" pimped, maybe "Slow Hands" too in spots, and the drummers from both bands stretch out the same smirk when doing so. Double frontman David Greenhill had a bit more of a rabbi snarl/goat bleat to his singing voice last night, but his (non)-presence on stage recalled Paul Banks, the two clearly competing for Matador's Most Disaffected Live Performer Since Large Professor award.

Funny thing is, a few spots the Double write better Interpol songs than Interpol. Their set really didn't take off until "Idiocy," in fact, and the song's on-beat whole-step vocal melody and those martial drum pounds caught Greenhill past the early-set kinks and distracting don't mind me's of, say, "Up All Night." When he wants to, he breaks the Knit's mysterious fourth wall that can keep their main room's sound flat, muffled, stuck on stage. The synths really fill out the rest of the house, electric and disembodied enough that the Double can fend off the Interpol (Oasis Remix) jabs with quite some facility; they might have a little more trouble explaining away the Doors.

Someone around here though really needs to sack it up, play wet blanket on the beach: The Double's last album, Palm Fronds, had a number of songs that started way intimate, spooked out by a haze of electronic sounds and whirring keyboards and autoharps, then grew into fierce my pet monsters. Simple formula, but the mix was their own, and entirely convincing: As a song grew louder, the playing and singing grew more confident, and from that the album garnered something of a boys life campfire sing-along vibe a bit more articulated than the label's other big LP release Campfire Songs, by former Double one-sheet touchstone the Animal Collective. I'll always like those songs most, I think, the Palm Frondsy ones. Not because the band sounds the most True To Self then, whatever that means, but because I miss the band's knack for big-screen sociability. The Double, I'd rather love them than respect.
Posted by Nick Sylvester at 02:00 AM, December 06, 2005