It’s the last Friday before Christmas and the party season is well and truly under way in Glasgow – drinks are flowing, pubs are packed and everyone is merry. Quite what the hell Interpol are doing in town then is anyone’s guess, given their Goth lite makeover of Joy Division and the Smiths isn’t exactly laugh a minute. 

The temperature has dropped well below zero as the throng make their way to what’s quickly becoming Glasgow’s best gig venue though, so it’s perhaps ironic that tonight the Academy plays host to New York’s coolest band. 

You’d be hard pressed to find a bad review of Interpol at the moment. Antics, their excellent second LP, sneaked out at the end of September and quickly established itself in most 'Record of the Year' polls. Most second albums are ‘difficult’ – just look at fellow New Yorkers the Strokes – but Antics sounded effortless, raising the bar from the darker debut Turn On The Bright Lights and showcasing a crisper, refined sound, even adding (surely not) a poppy edge, with catchy songs like ‘Evil’ and ‘Slow Hands’ burying themselves deep in your subconscious on first play. 

The gig doesn’t start well though, with support The Secret Machines treating the audience to an exercise in self indulgence. Essentially just a 25 minute spurt of hookless noise, it’s the perfect example of how not to play a gig. The fact that they get a good response is just a measure of how much the crowd are up for the main event. 

After what seems like an eternity Paul Banks and Co finally take the stage and launch into ‘Next Exit’, the opener from Antics. Although it’s a slow burner, it immediately sounds like perfection bottled in three and a half minutes, particularly as the piano notes crash down around the band towards the end. It also allows you to marvel at how brilliant Banks voice sounds. Conveying anger, anguish, desperation and a whole multitude of (negative) emotions, it’s the core of Interpol’s sound and is overwhelmingly powerful tonight. 

It’s a clever, almost choreographed performance and the band easily toy with the crowd and their emotions. ‘Obstacle 1’ comes quickly after the opener and sends the masses into a frenzy, while slower numbers like ‘Not Even Jail’ and ‘Take You On a Cruise’ (with rather snazzy 80s synth style chiming) calm things down.

Just when you think things have settled, they slam into the faster singalong of ‘Slow Hands’, causing another riot of delirium. There are two definite highlights. ‘Evil’, probably the best song on Antics due to an exhilarating chorus and dangerously sharp guitars, has the crowd screaming along to every word – this quickly segues into ‘PDA’, at which point people are close to passing out from grinning knowingly. Perhaps the best song though is in one of the quieter moments, with a gorgeously affecting ‘Hands Away’ oozing melancholy.  

By the time they close on ‘Stella Was A Diver & She Was Always Down’, the crowd are a sated and happy lot, ready to return to the cold night. As a more cynical record buyer, it’s easy for this writer to remain unaffected by the cool which Interpol seem to revel in. They play to it tonight as well, Banks not exactly engaging with the crowd (he says hello a few times and that’s it) and by the way the gig almost seems too organised. To be honest though, it would take a true Christmas scrooge not to see how brilliant they are tonight. On this evidence at least, they’re well worth the hype, cool or not.
(4½/5)

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