The Paranoid Style
The Interrogator
BAR/NONE
How do we approach making music in an increasingly complicated world in which mankind’s presence is quickly being stripped away, piece by piece, day after day, by artificial intelligence that tracks our every gesture and word—thus spreading an increasing sense of paranoia among the masses? It’ll take years for legislation to catch up to the tech bros, but, on the artistic and inherently human level—where AI is close to impersonating humans but hasn’t snagged the whole cigar—we still have a nose above the competition. The latest, even greatest example of the supremacy of human-generated art is found in the unadorned, ramshackle appeal of The Paranoid Style’s The Interrogator.
The DC garage-pop band throws caution to the wind on their fourth album, making it sound like a debut—a compliment if there ever was one in an increasingly machinated world. “Making the best of the worldwide emporium,” band leader Elizabeth Nelson quips on “I Love the Sound of Structured Class,” while husband Timothy Bracy hacks away at guitar. It’s rare to come across a studio record with as much breeziness and, at times, carefreeness when technology that can smooth out any wrinkles is accessible with a few keystrokes. Yet The Paranoid Style pull it off, as the project has before on the other three full-lengths attached to the band’s name. With reckless abandon, they tear through 13 songs in what feels like the time it takes to flip to Side B.
On The Interrogator, The Paranoid Style frequently look back on iconic moments in rock ’n’ roll, dropping a reference to “Strawberry Fields” here, sounding just like The Sonics there, name-checking “The Boys Are Back in Town” on “The Return of the Molly Maguires,” and winking at the goofiness of Bar/None label mates They Might Be Giants on “Last Night in Chickentown.” What makes the band so damn appealing is how Nelson, Bracy, and company craft a firecracker of a record with such ease and lack of pretension. That’s particularly the case with Nelson, who has plenty to say during these wordy songs, yet never succumbs to the hubris that chops down similar bands that talk the talk but don’t walk the walk. It’s as if she’s mastered the ability to sing without having to take a breath.
“From the latest craze to the latest persecution, to many things that Pitchfork got wrong,” she says on “Styles Make Fights” with what’s become her trademark deadpan, droll approach. From falling into debt (multiple times) to failing to vote, Nelson seems to cover every imaginable human foible on The Interrogator. It’s a refreshing cry of “my bad” from top to bottom, best summed up in the expression “To err is human.”
