The song “Narc” demonstrates the effectiveness of this layering technique: Beginning only with an angular guitar line, the song jumps to life with the sudden arrival of a surging bass line and steady backbeat. Interpol has a new swagger, is more direct and present. Banks’ familiar drone, tired but on pitch, remains an ideal complement for the shadowy sound his band churns out. The vocal melodies are catchy and diverse. The final product is more organic and less distant than the debut.

Lyrically, Banks sticks to what he knows. Themes of abandonment and ambiguous malaise still mingle melodramatically with weird, sometimes grotesque imagery. The prechorus of the first single, “Slow Hands,” covers much of the lyrical landscape: “Can’t you see what you’ve done to my heart and soul?/This is a wasteland now.” The chorus of the tense, agitated “Length of Love” is the odd mantra, “Combat salacious removal.” And the closer, “A Time to Be So Small,” has something about a “cadaverous mob.” The lyrics rarely drive the songs here, and are often difficult to decipher; Banks derives his authority as a singer less from the power of his words than from the uniquely disengaged brand of affliction that comes out of his throat.

The importance of this second release, the litmus test for staying power in the record industry, has no doubt weighed heavily on the band members, whose debut inspired such acute hyperventilation among indie rags. Fortunately, neither the watchful eyes of hipster nation nor the inflated anticipation for their follow-up have knocked Interpol off course. Unintimidated, the band appears to reassert its artistic and commercial ambitions bluntly in the album’s very first line: “We ain’t going to the town/We’re going to the city.” Antics finds the four young men just hitting their stride as a unit, knowing now what they do well and sharing an idea of where they want to go. Interpol are allowing themselves to grow naturally into their sound, gradually introducing richer shades of gray into their cloudy creations. Their patience—and ours—will pay off. Antics is a strong second step in a career full of promise.

--—William B. Higgins