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The lyrics are like something out of J. G. Ballard: "I will be your accident if you will be my ambulance," [tv on the radio] sing[s]. "I will be your screech and crash if you will be my crutch and cast" ... In "The Wrong Way," as a distorted bass pumps and saxophones honk, [tunde] Adebimpe comments obliquely on race, first saying a "new Negro politician is stirring inside of me," and then rejecting the notion: "No, there's nothing inside of me but an angry heartbeat. Can you feel this heart beat?"
These are sullen thoughts surrounded by murky and complex music—fresh ideas for a musical world that has largely focused on the angularity, minimalism and clarity of the post-punk period. The scene has been dominated by musical exhibitionism: debauched elegance in the case of the Strokes, the panicked disco of the Rapture, Karen O's wild swagger.
A dark undercurrent has always run through the new New York rock, in groups like Interpol, Elk City, the Walkmen and Calla. Recently it seems to be coming to the surface.
- BEN SISARIO, "New New York Rockers Follow Their Gloom," new york times March 21, 2004
posted March 22, 2004 in music, print