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**Our Love to Admire - Interpol**
★★★☆☆

Looking back now, with Interpol having weathered their wilderness years and emerged as elder statesmen of post-punk revival, it's easier to appreciate "Our Love to Admire" for what it actually was rather than what it wasn't. When the album dropped in 2007, it felt like watching your favorite indie darlings sell their souls to major label overlords – which, in fairness, is exactly what happened. But time has a funny way of softening harsh judgments, and what once seemed like betrayal now reads more like growing pains.

The cracks that would eventually lead to Carlos Dengler's departure in 2010 were already showing by the time Capitol Records came calling with their seven-figure check. The bassist's increasingly erratic behavior and clashes with the band's new corporate direction created a tension that permeates every groove of this album. You can almost hear the internal struggle between the art-school cool that made them downtown darlings and the arena-rock ambitions that major label money demanded.

Coming off the massive critical success of "Turn On the Bright Lights" and "Antics," Interpol faced an impossible task: how do you follow perfection? Their first two albums had established them as the thinking person's alternative to The Strokes, all sharp suits and sharper melodies wrapped in Paul Banks' cryptic poetry and Daniel Kessler's angular guitar work. But success has a way of dulling edges, and "Our Love to Admire" finds the band caught between their post-punk DNA and a desire to fill larger venues.

The album's opening salvo, "Pioneer to the Falls," immediately signals the shift. Where previous Interpol songs felt like they were recorded in dimly lit basements, this track has the sheen of expensive studio time. The production, courtesy of Rich Costey, buffs away much of the gritty charm that made their earlier work so compelling. It's undeniably professional, but professionalism was never what made Interpol special.

Yet when the band hits their stride, the results are undeniable. "The Heinrich Maneuver" remains one of their finest singles, a perfect marriage of their signature sound with newfound accessibility. Banks' vocals glide over Kessler's intricate guitar work while Sam Fogarino's drums provide the kind of propulsive backbone that made them indie dance floor legends. "Mammoth" showcases their ability to build tension through restraint, a slow-burn masterpiece that proves they hadn't completely lost their way.

The real revelation here is "Rest My Chemistry," perhaps the most emotionally direct song in their catalog. Banks drops his usual oblique wordplay for something approaching genuine vulnerability, and the result is devastating. It's the sound of a band remembering why they started making music in the first place, commercial pressures be damned. "The Scale" and "Who Do You Think" similarly find the sweet spot between their art-rock pretensions and pop sensibilities.

But for every moment of inspiration, there's a track that feels calculated rather than felt. The title track meanders without purpose, while "Wrecking Ball" tries too hard to be anthemic. These aren't bad songs, exactly, but they lack the mysterious magnetism that made you want to decode every Banks lyric and dissect every Kessler riff.

The album's legacy has been kinder than its initial reception suggested. While critics at the time lamented the loss of their lo-fi charm, "Our Love to Admire" now feels like a necessary bridge between their underground origins and their current status as festival headliners. Songs like "The Heinrich Maneuver" and "Rest My Chemistry" have become setlist staples, proving their lasting power beyond any major label machinations.

In the grand arc of Interpol's career, "Our Love to Admire" represents both a creative stumble and a commercial necessity. It's the sound of a band learning to navigate success without losing their identity entirely – a lesson that would serve them well through Dengler's departure and their eventual artistic renaissance. Not every great band gets to make perfect albums forever, but the great ones figure out how to evolve while keeping their soul intact. On their third outing, Interpol was still figuring that out.