Album Review: Snakes/Vultures/Sulfate by EmptyMansions

Having survived the most zeitgeisty band of the new millennium, Sam Fogarino’s Interpol hiatus project makes no small work of distancing itself from the mothership. Strident single “Lyra,” if anything, recalls the ferocity and dissonance of the best Pixies tracks; “FTC” exhibits all the ominous brutality of Killing Joke. Throw in a few Zeppisms, and it’s virtually a metal record—which his snarl is actually well suited to.

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Sam Fogarino literally take’s the back seat in Interpol — such is a drummer’s lot. Having held down the beat for Interpol since 2010, it’s easy to overlook Fogarino, but he’s doing his damnedest to carve out his own niche outside of his full-time gig’s sizable shadow. Working under the guise EmptyMansions, Fogarino, with the assistance of guitarist Duane Dennison (The Jesus Lizard) and multi-instrumentalist Brandon Curtis (Secret Machines), crafts a solid slate of eerie indie rock, something his tenure with Interpol has afforded him a firm stronghold on.

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EmptyMansions is the result of Sam Fogarino discovering his songwriting muse during downtime at his day gig. Common story, except Fogarino is best known as the drummer of Interpol, a band who in their own words owe their success to the serendipitous combination of four people with complementary strengths and weaknesses. Daniel Kessler wasn’t much of a singer, but had an innate gift for sonorous guitar layering and handling the day-to-day business affairs of a band.

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