El Pintor


El Pintor is the fifth studio album by the American rock band Interpol. It was released through Matador Records and Soft Limit on September 8, 2014, internationally, and on September 9, 2014, in North America. Self-produced by the band and recorded at Electric Lady Studios and Atomic Sound in New York City, the album was engineered by James Brown and mixed by Alan Moulder.
It is the band's first album without bassist Carlos Dengler, who departed Interpol after the release of the band's eponymous album in 2010. The bass duties on the album were taken over by frontman Paul Banks. The album features guest appearances by Brandon Curtis, Roger Joseph Manning Jr. and Rob Moose.
The band embarked on a summer tour preceding the album's release. Five singles were released from the album: "All the Rage Back Home", "Ancient Ways", "My Desire", "Anywhere", and "Everything Is Wrong".

Critical reception

Reviews of El Pintor have been highly positive overall. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from critics, the album received an average score of 77, which indicates "generally favorable reviews", based on 34 reviews. Clash magazine critic Will Salmon wrote: "...as an exercise in getting back to where you once belonged, El Pintor is highly successful". Dom Gourlay of Drowned in Sound thought that the album "feels more structured than Interpol" and stated, "Bold in intention and quiet in confidence, they've gone back to basics here and for the most part, the results are sublime". Gourlay also described the album as the band's "finest record in a decade". Writing for NME, Rhian Daly stated that the band proved that "there's still plenty of value in their elegantly downtrodden aesthetic." The Skinny critic Gary Kaill wrote: "Expansive and texturally advanced, and arguably their strongest outing since that lauded debut, this is a welcome second coming". Uncut magazine also stated: "It's back go icy, slightly gothic basics". Larry Fitzmaurice of Pitchfork gave a more mixed review of the album, stating: "There’s nothing here that touches the band’s creative peak, but any of El Pintors songs could hang with Interpol's strongest deep cuts".
El Pintor made its way onto multiple music magazine best of the year lists, most prominently, Drowned in Sound, Q and NME. It was voted the second best album of 2014 by the popular German music website Laut.de.

Accolades

Track listing

Personnel

;Interpol
;Guest musicians
;Other personnel

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Release history