Interpol debuted a new song, “Wings On Fire,” at Revel Entertainment Center in Albuquerque, dropping the track between the two Coachella weekends as the band kept testing unreleased material on the road.
The performance came as the group builds toward its eighth studio album, the follow-up to 2022’s “The Other Side of Make-Believe.” Interpol had already introduced another new song, “See Out Loud,” last month, and the Albuquerque stop gave fans the clearest sign yet that the next record is moving from rumor to set list.
Paul Banks said in 2024 that the next album is “quite high energy,” while Daniel Kessler said last July that listeners should expect “some upbeat tracks” and “different atmospherics.” Banks also said the band was “pretty pumped about the stuff that we have worked on so far,” and described returning to write together in a room as “pretty cool.”
That promise has not come from the exact lineup longtime fans know. Interpol is currently touring with The Armed’s Urian Hackney on drums, after Sam Fogarino, who joined the band in 2000, underwent spinal surgery in 2023 and stepped back from touring. Even so, Interpol confirmed that Fogarino co-wrote and performed on the new album, a reminder that his presence still runs through the material even when he is not onstage.
The band has been road-testing the songs while moving through North and South America, and the schedule leaves little breathing room. After Coachella weekend two, Interpol heads to Australia and New Zealand in May to support Deftones, then returns for European shows across July and August. The run includes another date with Deftones on August 23 at London’s All Points East x Outbreak, before Interpol closes the year with a co-headline tour with Bloc Party in the UK and Europe.
For now, the Albuquerque debut answers the question hanging over the road work: the new songs are not placeholders. They are the opening moves of an album cycle that is already onstage, and Interpol is playing them as if the band expects the next record to hit hard when it arrives.
