Album Review: Interpol - "This Mirror Weighs a Ton"
NYC veterans Interpol provide new and exciting moments and ideas on their eighth studio album, This Mirror Weighs a Ton, without shying too far away from their signature, meat and potatoes sound. Listeners wanting a newer reinvention or outlook from the band will have to wait on a future release.
Very few bands have the credibility that Interpol have. An institution that originally started nearly thirty years ago, NYC's very own Interpol have and still continue to provide their signature, slick, driving indie rock fronted by Paul Banks' ever cool, stone cold voice. Other than The Strokes or the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Interpol remain to have an undeniably high status that no one can take away from them. The band's 2002 debut classic, Turn On the Bright Lights, remains to be a cultural touchstone in the world of indie rock and it still retains its timeless, punchy attitude nearly twenty five years on. Since then, the band have given what the fans want, more laser focused indie rock with an edge. The band steadily released albums over the years and in between a brief hiatus in 2011-12, the group have returned with more focused material like 2012's El Pintor and 2018's Marauder. Interpol have returned, following up 2022's The Other Side of Make-Believe with a new album. Titled This Mirror Weighs a Ton, the record is their first not being released on Matador in nearly two decades, instead choosing for Partisan. This one's being produced by Miike Snow frontman / pop songwriter / producer Andrew Wyatt and the band themselves, while indie veteran Dave Fridmann is in the mixing department. The album cover, one of my favorites in recent memory, is slick and utterly fantastic, showcasing one of Addie Wagenknecht's pieces in her permanent collection at the Whitney Museum of American Art, which is a stark photo of a chandelier made up entirely of security cameras.
Interpol and I haven't had any huge, long lasting relationship together (not personally of course, but theoretically). I, like any other indie rock snob, think Turn On the Bright Lights is fantastic and indefensible, but outside of singles here and there, I haven't really delved into the catalog all that much or have had any huge desire to do so. The band's charm, swagger, and aesthetics are cool and exciting to an extent, but once you listen to an album or enough songs, their musical gamut kind of hits a wall in terms of what else the band can provide. This has been my issue with many groups over the years, where the group's initial sound is fully formed but they haven't managed to keep growing or shifting in interesting enough ways on future releases. This Mirror Weighs a Ton does provide new and exciting moments and ideas for the group, more so than any other record of theirs. There are flashes of new effects, sounds, and style switch ups that you typically don't hear too often on Interpol records. Right off the bat, you get the album's moody title track which uses lush harmonies and murky synths in a refreshing way, showcasing a Juliet Seger-Banks other than Paul Banks himself. "Iron City," another highlight, has these glistening chimes and harmonious backing instrumentation that's fresh. "So Rides the Reindeer" has a breezy, acoustic direction full of blips and bloops. "Wake Up" is arguably one of the band's grooviest tracks they've ever recorded with sharp grooves and guitar stabs.
But much of the newness are moments and ideas, not exactly material that's fully entrenched in new styles or sounds that are worth diving deep into. I think in 2026, it's time for a new Interpol record that ignites or invigorates something entirely new or fresh rather than rehashing the same, meat and potatoes indie rock sound they've basically perfected at this point. As this direction goes, Interpol continue to nail it, I'm not gonna lie. "See Out Loud" and "Wings On Fire" are pretty essential Interpol cuts that would totally go off at a live show. The album is solid, engaging, and is exactly what you would look for in an Interpol record if you aren't wanting the band to change up their sound too much. This Mirror Weighs a Ton isn't a bad record by any means and it's by far one of the most interesting Interpol releases yet. It just still lacks the new variety, shifts in sound and style, and overall progression I would like to hear in a new Interpol release. Hopefully in the future we'll get that but for now, This Mirror Weighs a Ton is an album that successfully showcases why Interpol are still great at what they do best.
My Rating: 6 / 10
Favorite Songs: "Iron City," "See Out Loud," "This Mirror Weighs a Ton," "So Rides the Reindeer," "Wake Up," "Ever the Actor"
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