Interpol

Interpol play The Eastern on Friday, October 16, their only Atlanta date on a North American tour that runs from July 31 in Denver to October 17 in Nashville. They're touring their seventh album, The Other Side of Make-Believe, and the set is built around it.

That record came together in a slow, fragmented way. Work started remotely across 2020 and wrapped in early 2021, first at a rented house in the Catskills and later in North London. It was the band's first time working with producer Flood, alongside former co-producer Alan Moulder. Frontman Paul Banks wrote the songs while grounded in Edinburgh for nearly nine months, working with a cream-colored bass guitar and a laptop rather than writing live over a drum kit. The title, the cover, and the lyrics lean toward fables and the mutability of truth, and Banks has described them as a reflection of his disgust with the curdling of the information age.

It's been nearly four years since the album came out, and the Atlanta show falls toward the end of the tour, which kicks off in Denver on July 31 and winds down in Nashville on October 17. The band's early material was known for dark subjects—Polish knife-wielders and incarcerated serial killers—and across seven albums and several line-ups, they've come to be seen as one of the most distinctive and enduring rock groups of the 21st century. This tour brings that history to the stage, with The Other Side of Make-Believe at the center.

Interpol take the stage at The Eastern (777 Memorial Dr SE, Atlanta, GA 30316) on Friday, October 16, at 8 PM. Tickets start at $125.