Pick four songs from any band and you can tell a lot about their sound. This summer, I’m featuring #RockBlocks, four picks from bands across various genres. They might be wildly different from each other, but what binds them together is the fact that they’re all a part of my life soundtrack.

There was a good four-year stretch when Interpol was my favorite band on the planet. They just got it. They wore my city on their sleeve. They recovered all the right elements of post punk. And they made me want to be in a band. Something I hadn’t felt since The Stone Roses. It all started with Turn on the Bright Lights and one of the lead singles, “PDA”.

Listening back to “PDA” again, I’m reminded how eerily similar Paul Banks’ catatonic vocals are to Ian Curtis. I remember how Daniel Kessler brought a new style of guitar grating that frankly no one else has gotten right — that strangely nauseating, yet entrancing pull. And I look back and marvel at the pulsating, rhythmic bed laid down by Carlos D. and Fogarino. “PDA” was decade-defining and a musical playground in the post-9/11 era.

“We have two hundred couches where you can sleep tight, grim rite.”