Pretty girls make graves, but pretty boys make bands, and the four likely lads of Interpol are so audaciously resplendent in their doom-and-gloom guitar ambience, you just have to tip your cap. Like many other New York indie bands, these well-dressed young men are bewitched by classic British art fucks such as Echo and the Bunnymen, Joy Division, Ride and the Smiths. But Interpol's sleek, melancholy sound is a thing of glacial beauty. After three mouthwatering EPs, they sound totally assured on their first full-length album, as singer Paul Banks mutters about the various depressed ladies in his life over reverb-drenched guitar drones. In their greatest song, "Obstacle 1," these guys can't even decide which Joy Division tune they're trying to bite, beginning with "She's Lost Control," segueing into "Disorder" and accidentally coming up with a brilliant new tune of their own. With gems such as "PDA," "Roland" and the fabulously titled "Stella Was a Diver and She Was Always Down," Interpol make head music as impeccably tailored as their Dolce & Gabbana suits.

“The Everchanging Spectrum of a Lie”

The opener off the Welsh group’s The Big Roar album was an epic one, but the band was worried that track had polarized fans. “The first song is eight minutes long,” Rhydian Dafydd, the Joy Formidable bassist, said. “If you did that in the Seventies people would be, ‘Whatever.’ You do it now, people think, ‘Holy s---!’ Some people think it’s the f---ing greatest track on the entire album, and some people think it’s f---ing boring. It’s that element of needing to challenge people.” The band concluded through the song’s lyrics that love was the “everchanging spectrum of a lie.”