I have the joy in announcing the new Interpol album is as good as I hoped it would be. In fact it does exactly what it needs to do. It sounds like Interpol, it's got some great lyrics, and it timidly breaks into some new directions. Our Love To Admire is another step forward for the NYC band without abandoning the familiar waters in which they sail. I'll spare the Joy Division comparisons because after 3 records, that has gotten very old, and quite frankly it's a label not all that appropriate anymore. Sure, Paul Banks' voice still has the Ian Curtis gloominess about it, but musically I think Interpol have gotten more adventurous and playful on Our Love, and in some ways, much stronger for it. Again, this doesn't mean the band stray far from the formula, Our Love To Admire is a sweeping ode to relationships and the personal struggles that come with them.

The album starts off somewhat more experimental before settling in, but after a few listens, this start, particularly Pioneer of the Falls, might be one of the key moments of the entire disc. Nearly 6 minutes in length, Pioneer of the Falls sounds as if we are witnessing a funeral of sorts, with all kinds of subtle sonic rumblings going on. It's not over the top mind you, but it's enough to evoke a new and emotional starting point for the new material. A stunning start. The first single, The Heinrich Maneuver, is an up-tempo jab to an ex-love now residing on the opposite coast, it's fun and as accessible as Interpol can be. As always, Carlos D's commanding bass lines carry the single, and in many ways, anchor the whole of the record. More familiar footing can be found in, `No I in Threesome' which is about (obviously enough) someone trying resurrect a dying love affair with ways to spice things up. In it, Paul playfully sings, "maybe it's time we give something new a try". The result, both sonically and lyrically, is a relentless and interesting view of love and how certain people may handle the harder times. Mammoth, the album's dynamic fifth track, attacks the ears with Daniel Kessler's simple, repeated guitar riffs that fans may feel echo early work like C'Mere or PDA (not a bad thing at all). More ambient numbers are also present as well. The eerie, The Lighthouse, has Bank's crooning in a way that it almost turns into spoken word, it's strange and affecting.

The subtleness of Interpol's maturation and evolution as a band is more obvious in tracks like, Who Do You Think, Pace Is the Trick, and Rest My Chemistry. All have an underlining new spirit and fervor reserved for bands making drastic changes to what they do best. Not the case here, Interpol have employed these changes with the expected precision we've come to admire from them. And even with all the expected underpinnings, the band has grown perfectly into what they do. Fully realized, Our Love To Admire is more ambitious and more rewarding than their first two releases combined, and for me, that's speaking volumes. One only has to look upon to new (and great) art direction they've added to visual represent the change in the band's direction and growth found within.

When I heard Antics I liked it but it was just a continuation of the first album. When Our Love to Admire came out I bought it thinking "What else can these guys do?" I have my answer. OLTA is Interpol but different. They kept the Interpol sound but did different things with it, some of it more upbeat and some not. I am a satisfied customer. It gets better with every listening.

It is my opinion that with Our Love to Admire Interpol has returned to the subtlety of Turn on the Bright Lights, and is a better album than Antics. I owned Bright Lights for almost a year after it came out before I really listened to the album and came to appreciate it. This was partly due to how different it was from all the other music on the radio, with its eccentric lyrics and subtle musicality. You really needed to pay attention while listening to value it (at least I did). It is now one of my all-time favorites.

When Antics was released, I listened to it the first time and felt like I "got it," meaning it was in a similar vein as Bright Lights but lacked the nuance that had rewarded close listening. It's a good album, but not great. The first time I heard the new album I wasn't blown away. But I did hear some of the seeds of what had made Bright Lights so remarkable, and I stuck with it. After listening to it for a few weeks, I have to say I think Our Love to Admire is a great album. I won't do a song by song thing, since that has already been done by other reviewers. Basically, the whole record is full of little surprises and clever touches that make listening to it sort of like trying to complete a puzzle or a crossword: you're listening to a song that you've heard a dozen times before when something pops out at you from the bass line or the percussion and totally changes the shape of the song. It is that kind of detail that makes Interpol such a great band, and it really comes through on this album.

This CD isn't exactly taking them into a new direction, but I believe it's pulling more of what was hidden the past couple of years. Mascara was a great song, but it wasn't on the first or second album. This new CD has more material that sounds like it would've been hidden material similar to mascara or the specialist. Most of the songs have that droning, dark voice of Paul Banks, with the exclusion of "The Heinrich Maneuver." It's a hard comparison among all three CD's, but they have not turned for the worst. If anything, the CD sounds like antics, but the songs are powerful enough to have you coming back if you listen to them thoroughly.

After a startling and instantly classic debut album (2002's Turn On the Bright Lights) and an upbeat but less ambitious sophomore set (2004's Antic), Interpol made the jump to the major labels, and then took its sweet time to come up with new material. Finally here comes the much anticipated new album.

The music on "Our Love to Admire" (11 tracks; 47 min.) generally seems to fall within two categories: on the one hand there is the continuation of more upbeat songs, with the prime example being the first single "The Heinrich Maneuver" ("Slow Hands" Part 2, but even catchier), but also on songs like "No I in Threesome" and in a strange way also on "All Fired Up" (with the main guitar riff seemingly lifted straight from Radiohead's "I Might Be Wrong"!). Other songs fall within the more ambitious TOTBL-like category, such a mesmorizing slowburner (and album opener) "Pioneer to the Falls", "Pace is the Trick", "Rest My Chemistry", and the closer "The Lighthouse", which is haunting in many respects and the perfect way to close things of. There are unfortunately also a couple of songs such as "The Scale" and "Who Do You Think" that don't grab you and really don't seem to fit in very well in this set.

Interpol has not gone into any new musical direction or even expanded dramarically on what it has done before, which some might call a lack in ambition. But there are a lot of great tunes on this album, and in the end that is what it's about. I saw Interpol play a number of the new songs at Coachella a few months ago, and live they sound better than ever, including on the new songs.