TCB

Interpol

Sleep Tonight

NYC-based gloom merchants Interpol, who stop by Emo's Monday with the Warlocks, are doing their best to bring turbulent post-punk introspection back to rock & roll. Last year's frosty Matador debut Turn on the Bright Lights is a double-stitched woolen blanket of melancholy, which guitarist Daniel Kessler tried to deny from the decidedly non-Goth burg of Portland, Ore.

TCB: Not the most cheerful album, is it?

DK: I don't know. It's an expressive album. We write music that's expressive and on an emotional level. At the same time, I think it's a rock & roll record, and it's pretty intense all over, in energy as well as atmosphere. I don't look at it as a downer of an album or depressing.

TCB: What are you trying to express here?

DK: Well, I mean, we're not really trying to express anything as much as I think -- like in our songs, there's always a sense of atmosphere [and] a mood, whether it's aggressive or pretty.

TCB: So do you guys wear black all the time?

DK: No.