Paul Banks - 'Banks'

PAUL BANKS
Banks

Matador, 2012

• Favorites:

  "Young Again," "Another Chance"

• FLAVORS:

  Julian Plenti, That Guy Who Sang With Interpol

RATING:

TRACK LIST:

• The Base
• Over My Shoulder
• Arise, Awake
• Young Again
• Lisbon
• I'll Sue You
• Paid For That
• Another Chance
• No Mistakes
• Summertime Is Coming

This is the first Paul Banks solo album. Or at least, the first solo album by Paul Banks on which Paul Banks has given up on pretending to be a man called Julian Plenti, who never existed for reasons that were never quite clear. That's fair enough. As it turns out, the real Paul Banks sounds a lot like Julian Plenti, who always reminded us a lot of the singer guy from Interpol. Moments here come close to the dry fury of Antics, and most is still better than Interpol's un-hymned fourth. Overall, though, it remains largely in "my side project" territory.