There will always be one band that I can play that will immediately pull me into a pool of New York-related memories. Even though I listened to them before I moved here (nearly 10 years ago now), it wasn’t until my first week in New York when I walked around Manhattan with Turn On The Bright Lights in my ears that I fell madly in love with them. They will always be my New York band. The one that is made of memories and nostalgia, of stone and dust, of long nights and long days, of the unknown and the well known, of friendship and love and anger and pain. When Antics was released in 2004 I bought it from Tower Records on Broadway (I miss that store so much) and spent days and days listening to it on a loop. My amazing friend Lynn came over from Belfast and we went to see them play live at a festival that was held in Staten Island and Brooklyn (we went to the SI one – I think it was called Across the Narrows), and then again at Webster Hall for their last minute end of tour show. We stood up on the right balcony right above the stage, and since then I always end up there for some reason. We rushed back to my apartment in Spanish Harlem after the Staten Island festival to change and to rush downtown in a cab afterwards looking for the elusive “afterparty”. We ended up drinking at Darkroom which basically set the pace for that location to be my favourite drinking location for years afterwards. That place is a story or 12 in itself, saved for another time. Friendships and music and dancing and lots of alcohol and a few tears in that place. Evil. Nights in the basement of the Annex. PDA.

I keep falling, maybe half the time, maybe half the time
I keep falling, maybe half the time, maybe half the time
But it's all the rage back home
It's all the rage back home – All The Rage Back Home, Interpol

2007 came along with Our Love to Admire and that tiny little studio apartment I lived in, in the West Village, NYC nights, too many of them and then Rest My Chemistry. I still love that album. Pioneer to the Falls is still beautiful to my ears, yearning. Those years are all a bit of a blur, so many ups and downs and changes and stagnant issues, beauty and despair, happiness and love. Then a move to Brooklyn and many, many changes for the better. 2010 came with Interpol, their only album that I haven’t loved from the first listen. It was only after seeing them play the songs live that I realised just how good it was. That, and listening to it while photographing autumn sunrises from the roof of my apartment building. That album will always be a background to that awful winter of 2011-2011 with the mountains of snow and the blizzards from hell.

I thought they had broken up for good, moved on. I actually don’t know where I heard that, or if I made it up, but I was so happy to hear that another album was in the works. And here we are, September 2014 and El Pintor is here.

Interpol’s sound is unmistakable. Old song, new song, from the first notes I am pulled into a very, very special place in my head and my heart. A place inhabited by many people, emotions and memories. I can taste those feelings just by hearing their sound. I know I am completely biased because I love them so much. This is why this can’t be a review, more a string of images. Images of why this band means so much to me. My New York that I have shared with so many, and their New York that they have shared with me.

The album is absolutely excellent. That unmistakable Interpol sound that soars through your ears, the darkness and the light, the hope, the despair. This is one band that can release an album every few years and still remain true to their sound, while always aiming for something a little different, a slightly different direction, but still, that core sound that can only be described as Interpol. I’ve never been able to compare one Interpol album with another; they are all standalone in my memories and together as one in my present.

Cause I could go anywhere
I could go anywhere
So free, my place in the sun
Cause I could go anywhere – Anywhere, Interpol

When I reflect back on my own ten years in NYC, I see the same person at the core, travelling through time, with events and changes along the way, climbing high, falling down, picking myself up and gaining in strength and knowledge and love, bringing me to who I am today. And I’ve always had Interpol by my side on my journey in this city. So much love for this band. And now so much love for El Pintor.