Interpol

Manhattan, 1997

Interpol formed in Manhattan in 1997 around Daniel Kessler, who recruited Paul Banks on vocals and guitar and Carlos Dengler on bass and keyboards, with Greg Drudy on drums. Drudy left in 2000 and Sam Fogarino took the stool, completing the line-up that would carry the band through its first decade.

The debut, 'Turn On the Bright Lights', arrived on 19 August 2002 via Matador Records. Pitchfork made it their album of the year for 2002 and it had sold roughly 300,000 copies by 2004 — slow-burn numbers for a record whose reverb-heavy guitar interplay and funeral-march basslines became the template a great many bands copied badly. 'Antics' followed on 27 September 2004, sold 350,000 copies in four months, went gold in both the UK and the US, and produced the band's first UK Top 40 singles, 'Slow Hands' among them.

Dengler left in 2010, which was treated at the time as the end of something. Banks, Kessler and Fogarino kept going as a trio on record, hiring players for the stage, and the band's identity narrowed to those three names for the next decade and a half.

The Matador years, and the gap

What followed the first two albums was a longer, flatter stretch: records that worked in parts, tours that filled good-sized rooms, and a steady drift away from the moment Interpol were credited with starting. 'The Other Side of Make-Believe' in 2022 was the last of them, and the last under the Matador arrangement that had run for more than twenty years.

Four years then passed without an album — the longest gap of the band's career — during which the back catalogue did the work. Interpol remained a reliable festival booking on the strength of four or five songs that have never left their set.

'This Mirror Weighs a Ton'

The eighth album was announced on 9 June 2026 alongside two songs, the title track and 'See Out Loud'; 'Iron City' followed on 8 July. 'This Mirror Weighs a Ton' was released on 28 August 2026 through Partisan Records — the band's first album away from Matador in over two decades. It runs twelve tracks and 53 minutes 27 seconds.

It was recorded between 2024 and 2026 at Arcos Sound and Gonzo's in New York City, the first time the band had made a record in the city in more than ten years. Andrew Wyatt produced, a first for a band that had largely self-produced of late, and Dave Fridmann mixed. Banks told NME the thinking was simply to 'work with a producer on this record, and let's work with our friend who's based in New York City'. The arrangements take on strings, woodwinds, acoustic guitars, synthesisers, layered vocals and a fair amount of sound design, which on 'So Rides the Reindeer' pushes well outside anything the band has tried before.

The sleeve is Addie Wagenknecht's sculpture 'Asymmetric Love Number 2', a baroque chandelier built out of fourteen CCTV cameras — a reasonable visual summary of the surveillance material running through 'Iron City'.

Reviews were the best in twenty years: a Metacritic average of 83 from the album's critical round-up, with NME calling it the strongest thing Interpol have made since 'Antics' and singling out 'Wings on Fire' and the devotional 'Enemy'. Commercially it was modest — number 33 on the UK albums chart, number three on the UK independent chart, number 198 on the Billboard 200 — which says more about how albums sell now than about the record.

Five names on the poster

The other change in 2026 was structural. Brad Truax, who has played bass with the band on the road for years, and Brandon Curtis on keyboards were both made official members, ending the trio-plus-hired-hands arrangement that had stood since Dengler's departure. Wyatt played the keyboard parts on the album itself; Curtis handles them live.

Banks's explanation to NME was blunt: 'I'd rather the inclusion than the exclusion.' On the same record he was unusually direct about quality control, calling it 'really a no-skips record for me' and saying he had felt it was important for this one to be good. Truax's playing is audible in the change — the low end on the new songs is heavier and more physical than on the 2022 album, and it has carried into the live arrangements of the older material.

A year of three different-sized stages

Interpol spent 2026 moving between formats. They played both Coachella weekends in April, preceded by a two-night warm-up at Channel 24 in Sacramento on 8 and 9 April, then a South American run that included main support to Deftones at Lollapalooza in Argentina, Chile and Brazil. On 23 August they played the East Stage in the afternoon at All Points East presents Outbreak Festival in Victoria Park, London, under a Deftones headline, with 'Evil', 'Obstacle 1', 'Slow Hands' and 'PDA' doing the heavy lifting; Radio X's round-up of the day called it New York indie done properly.

The North American headline tour ran from Denver's Mission Ballroom on 31 July to The Pinnacle in Nashville on 17 October, announced on 30 April with presales from 6 May and general sale on 8 May. Support rotated by date across Youth Lagoon, Loathe, Julie, DIIV and French Police, with sombr added for Vancouver on 29 September — an unusually broad spread of openers for a heritage-leaning run.

The outlier was 27 September. With the CBGB Festival cancelled by severe weather, the band booked Mercury Lounge in New York at a few days' notice, a 250-capacity room they had not played since 2001, and made it their only non-festival New York show of the year.

What is on sale now

The next leg is the co-headline tour with Bloc Party, announced on 31 October 2025: eighteen UK and European cities, with both bands drawing on material spanning two decades, from 'Silent Alarm' and 'Antics' outwards. The two toured together in 2004 and co-headlined Australian shows in 2023, so the pairing is not a marketing construct.

It opens at Copenhagen's Royal Arena on 10 November 2026 and takes in Berlin, Paris and Amsterdam — AFAS Live on 17 November — before reaching the UK at Birmingham's Utilita Arena on 20 November, then Cardiff, Sheffield, Dublin and Glasgow, with two nights each in Manchester and Brighton. It closes with two shows at London's Olympia on 4 and 5 December.

Beyond that, a nine-date American run announced on 23 October 2026 covers 16 to 27 March 2027: New Orleans' Saenger Theatre, The Espee in San Antonio, Payne Arena in Hidalgo, the Bomb Factory in Dallas, Satellite Music Hall in Memphis, Thomas Wolfe Auditorium in Asheville, The Anthem in Washington, The Met in Philadelphia and Starland Ballroom in Sayreville. Deafheaven open eight of the nine, Memphis excepted. Artist presale ran on 28 October 2026, general sale on 30 October.