They have nearly all come in now: the sophomore releases from the highly touted and derided imitators of yesteryear, The Strokes, The Walkmen, and now Interpol. While The Strokes hammered out an impressive array of pop tunes much like the first time around, and The Walkmen got savvy, Interpol has yet to really make a second album.

Released this past Tuesday, Antics (Matador) sounds more like a collection of B-sides and singles than a carefully sequenced album. Unlike The Strokes’, whose subtle self-mimicry with Room on Fire (RCA, 2003) was able to live up to their debut Is This It (RCA, 2001), Interpol doesn’t have the sonic range to hide behind their pensive and weary debut, Turn On the Bright Lights (Matador, 2002).

A little less self-conscious and even a little more introverted, Antics experiments more with melody than one would expect from such a narrow sounding band. “Take You on a Cruise” and “Slow Hands,” for example, survive on restrained Doolittle-era rhythms, already more of a departure than one could say Bright Lights travels from the shadow of Joy Division and The Afghan Whigs. Vocalist Paul Banks smartly doesn’t take his harmonies to a Frank Black level, only stepping slightly out of his previous curt pretension by escalating his volume, like on “Slow Hands” and the sparse “Evil.”

For all the tinkering done between Bright Lights and Antics the sum never quite equals the parts. The instrumentation has matured in the past two years but the cohesion that made Bright Lights such a thrill never materializes. Tracks shift from one to another without a sonic context. Consequently, songs tend to slip by without the sticky residue so confidently defined on Bright Lights.

Indicative of a more experienced and comfortable band, Antics sounds unbound in comparison to the densely mixed Bright Lights. However, Interpol’s trademark emulation still remains but Antics lacks the definite singularity that made Bright Lights such a catch. Even at times when you wanted to choke them for their shrewdness you secretly miss it. It’s been a product of the group all along, simultaneously frustrating and endearing the listener.

Antics tends to do the same on a different premise. Interpol teases the listener with more variation in tempo and songwriting but not enough in emotional expression. While Antics might sound more attractive to some without Bright Lights’ overwrought melancholy, the melodies and harmonies fall short of complementing each other precisely enough to give the album coherence.

The more one listens to Antics, the more shrewd Interpol appears. Bright Lights was just that—flipping the switch of the spotlight on talent and expectations, where Antics tends to be the wise fool, like when an adeptly crafted bridge on “Public Pervert” glimmers where the rest of the song sinks in comparison. As a result, Antics lacks definition. It is not a strict departure from or extension of Bright Lights, nor is it a step backwards. It’s more like a sidestep. For that, Antics will get the “sophomore slump” tag it doesn’t wholly deserve.