A shimmering keyboard pattern and the slow swoon of electric guitars brought to life both the four impeccably dressed lads of Interpol and "Untitled," the number that opened Friday’s sold-out show at Avalon, the second of the group’s two nights there. The aloof indolence of singer/guitarist Paul Banks’s vocal set against an opulent sonic backdrop made for a powerful contrast. But this was an evening full of contrasts: intimacy and distance; cold black-and-white heat; taut aggression and luxuriant languor. And a crowd gathered to cheer songs whose themes hinged on isolation and alienation as inevitable by-products of urban life.

Comparisons of Interpol with Joy Division have grown redundant and tedious — indeed, they became woefully inadequate from the moment Interpol released Turn On the Bright Lights (Matador), a cerebral debut that wrapped post-punk ennui in a glittering package of chilly perfection, earlier this year. As the band demonstrated at Avalon, their palette is a cross-section canvas of late-’70s/early-’80s post-punk: Wire, Echo and the Bunnymen, and Bauhaus all come into play. With its stuttering guitars and hammering riffs, "Say Hello to the Angels" owes far more to the Clash’s guitar shrapnel than it did to Ian Curtis’s sulk. The song’s spiky rhythmic stride is right out of the Buzzcocks/Gang of Four handbook on how to cut to the quick in 120 seconds or less. And both the brusque "Obstacle 2" and the insistent "The New" would both have been a fine fit for the Psychedelic Furs’ songbook.

This is not to suggest that Interpol don’t have their own thing. It’s just that their source material is as indelible and consummate as are their sartorial choices. And those familiar echoes of the past are hard to ignore. But the brooding majesty of "NYC" is all Interpol. And the electric guitars of Banks and Daniel Kessler create their own brand of tangled and twined interplay. Propelled by Sam Fogarino’s martial backbeat and Carlos D’s fluid bass, those guitars bleated like sirens on the bomb-shelter blare of "Stella Was a Diver and She Was Always Down." The punctual 70-minute set closed with a tersely blistering "PDA," a missive delivered with deadly, dour precision. When the bright lights came up, Interpol were already gone.