El pintor

As the band's first album without bassist Carlos Dengler, 'El Pintor' features frontman Paul Banks assuming bass duties, a change that coincided with a deliberate return to a more focused and urgent post-punk sound. The self-produced collection strips away the experimentalism of its predecessor, favoring the atmospheric, interlocking guitar work and driving rhythms that characterized their earliest and most acclaimed records. Mixed by Alan Moulder, the album possesses a polished yet texturally expansive quality that was widely praised by critics as a confident reset that solidified the band's future as a three-piece.