In defense of "No I in Threesome"

I've read three or four reviews of Interpol's most recent album, "Our Love to Admire," as well as scattered internet opinions, and critics have pretty consistently appraised it as mediocre. Their reasons are basically the same: some of the songs are good, some are bad, and the bad outweighs the good. I don't disagree with them; this is an inconsistent album. What I take issue with is how the track "No I in Threesome" has been almost universally maligned while I consider it the album's highlight. After some thought, I've probably found the reason for such across-the-board dislike for the track.

Interpol has always been an incredibly consistent band. "Turn on the Bright Lights" is nearly perfect, while "Antics," though it carries some deadweight, never contained an actual dud. When "Our Love to Admire" was released, the reviews practically wrote themselves as critics could then contrast the band's newly erratic songwriting to that from their previous do-no-wrong era. All such a review needs is a cherry on top - an example of how wildly the needle flails on the quality dial - and the choice is too easy. They're given a track with a name that sounds like a joke (from a band that makes its name on seriousness) with lyrics, it seems, just as embarrassing. So why wasn't I among those eager to make "Threesome" my whipping boy? It might have something to do with the way I was introduced to the song.

I'd been waiting for months for this particular album to be released, and finally it appeared on the shelf in the WMBR studios. The only problem was that I wasn't there. Though I usually have a radio show on Friday nights this summer, I reguarly trade off with my radio partner Megan, and it was she who found the CD there. She was DJing that night, so I called and requested that she please play some new Interpol. Without looking at the track list, she popped in the disc and skipped to #2 because "track 2's are usually good." By the end of the song, we'd decided that this was no exception. If knowing beforehand that it was titled "No I in Threesome" might've poisoned our first impression, we wouldn't have noticed. The music itself made its point loud and clear before any prejudice could've.

The song begins with a few seconds of eery bass and strings and then clicks into a full-band trot accentuated by stately piano steadily chiming above it all. It has the kind of sound you'd find in the coda of an Arcade Fire song but with the guitar understated almost to the point of fatigue. It bursts awake during the chorus, mirroring the last desperate efforts of a man trying to resuscitate a doomed relationship.

Much is made of how erratic and banal Paul Banks' lyrics can supposedly be, but the effect is actually partly intended. Interpol delivers its music with a straight face, but that doesn't imply a lack of self-awareness. The unsettled and awkward manner in which Banks wields his metaphors is how he conveys his frustration at a life that defeats him as he struggles to wrap his head around it. For "Threesome," Banks is throwing whatever emotional leverage he has left behind a threesome overture, because after the "teethmarks of time" have eroded his romance, the only choice he has left is to go all-in. A cheeky line like "alone we may fight, so let us be three tonight" plays on how a couple will only stop bickering long enough to be polite to company and shows that Banks and co. are in on the tragic joke.

Far from being the nadir of the album, "No I in Threesome" is one of the all-around best songs in Interpol's catalogue. You just know it would make a fantastic music video, too.