Paul Banks: Banks

PAUL BANKS: BANKS (2012)

1) The Base; 2) Over My Shoulder; 3) Arise, Awake; 4) Young Again; 5) Lisbon; 6) Iʼll Sue You; 7) Paid For That; 8) Another Chance; 9) No Mistakes; 10) Summertime Is Coming.

General verdict: About as inspiring to listen to as its cover art.

This man seriously does not relent. It takes a real brainstorm to figure out the aesthetic differences between Interpol and Julian Plenti, and to this we now add the even more difficult and nuanced task of figuring out the differences between Interpol, Julian Plenti, and Paul Banks. Even without listening to the album, though, you will probably want to surmise that Julian Plenti Is... Skyscraper must have represented a specially constructed and loyally impersonated artistic persona, whereas Banks, on the contrary, must represent something so achingly sincere and self-adequate that if you care about this human being at all, you just have to get yourself to try and love his confessions as he lays his soul bare for you all to see.

It does seem like this presupposition is fairly close to the truth, given the passion with which Paul himself talked about each song in a fan interview. But if it is, then, I am sorry to say, Paul Banksʼ soul is just not that exciting as far as souls go. Let us begin with the second track, ʽOver My Shoulderʼ, about which he says: "I had this riff for a while..." — well, sure he had, because if he means the opening riff, then it is essentially the melody of Springsteenʼs ʽBorn To Runʼ, and while the two songs are definitely not one and the same, I cannot get rid of the feeling that Banks was trying to go for his own Born To Run — after all, Springsteen did exert a strong influence on almost the entire indie-rock scene on the 2000s, Interpol included, and there is nothing criminal about the idea, provided you do it well. Unfortunately, ʽOver My Shoulderʼ is a stiff, repetitive composition with too much slowdiving-shoegazing ice wedged into the groove to ever match Springsteenʼs exuberance — and if there is no such goal, I can hardly even understand what other goal it might pursue.

On the whole, the album tries to be more rocky and pushy than Interpolʼs self-titled disaster, but rockiness and pushiness calls for great riffs and mounting energy, both of which are nowhere to be found. It is just one boring mid-tempo rock song after another, going for anthemic effects with their keyboard arrangements and multi-tracked echoey vocals and getting absolutely nowhere. When your only thoughts are about setting up a mid-tempo groove and half-singing, half-reciting a chilled-out poem of depression in a multi-tracked robotic voice... well, you get away with it if you are Kraftwerk, not if you are Paul Banks. I just took a couple extra listens to ʽThe Baseʼ just to see if there could be something about the track that I could share with you, gentle reader, and the only thing I could come up with is that, you know, "I feel youʼre truly anesthesized" is the most telling line on the entire album.

Arguably the only noticeable moments are when Banks breaks out of the formula to try his hand at something without vocals — but this does not mean that the instrumental ʽLisbonʼ is in any way more memorable, it just surprises you by not having that monotonous voice plastered all over the monotonous instrumental textures. I donʼt even know what it is; perhaps it is really all about the bland, colorless production style, because the tune has both a melody and an attempt at a build-up, almost Godspeed You Black Emperor-style, but either he cannot find the right chords or he is unable to create a proper mix, with the lead guitar drowning in all the synthesized strings rather than soaring over them. Even worse is his attempt at a bit of sampled «plunderphonics»: ʽAnother Chanceʼ, featuring tons of annoying dialog from some godforsaken indie film, is a confusing sonic mess without a purpose.

In the end, I myself am fairly confused, because that Julian Plenti record did not bore or annoy my senses that much — it wasnʼt great, but it sounded like an honest attempt to construct some Interpol-related personality that would be sufficiently distinct from Banksʼ main band. This, on the other hand, just seems like a version of Interpol that has amplified all the boring aspects of the band and completely dropped all the potentially non-boring ones. And it also turns out that Paul Banks with his heart on his sleeve looks pretty much the same way as Paul Banks with his heart tucked deep inside. Talk about a glass heart...