Julian Plenti – 'Is Skyscraper' review
You may know Julian Plenti better as Interpol’s Paul Banks, a fact he appears to want to obscure but which becomes crashingly apparent the moment he opens his mouth. The fabricated back story, though, suggests that this is Plenti’s debut album, born of a particular piece of home-production software, but in reality Is Skyscraper is an Interpol album performed without the other members, with a slightly crumbier rhythm section and generally more haphazard results.
On the whole, it’s better than Interpol’s last (and worst) LP, and benefits from an intimacy that Banks probably isn’t able to establish with the rest of his band around. But these tracks feel more like ideas than songs, and there’s not enough intensity or interest here to excuse attendant joylessness.
5/10
