Just after Valentine’s Day, bellowing Bristol rockers Idles are releasing an album about love. This is a somewhat unusual development, considering that the quintet’s debut was titled Brutalism and their most popular song on streaming services is called Never Fight a Man With a Perm.
They have often tempered their guitar fury with humour, and although frontman Joe Talbot does have a reputation as a sensitive type, his arrival for this fifth album metaphorically clutching a bunch of roses and a teddy bear is definitely a new look.
Having started out making hefty, sloganeering post-punk that came across like a blow to the back of the head with a blunt instrument, by album three, Ultra Mono, they had painted themselves into a corner musically.
Crawler, in 2021, showed an escape route, adding some electronic textures and showing Talbot beginning to test out his singing voice instead of his shouting one. This time, as well as regular producer Kenny Beats, they’ve enlisted the help of Nigel Godrich. Believe it or not, the hissing beats, looped piano and dramatic tension of Idea 01, and the slow synth groans of Monolith, do sound a bit like Godrich’s best-known collaborators, Radiohead.
Elsewhere, there’s plenty of familiar Idles energy but still more interesting diversions. Roy feels like a menacing soul song with its twangy guitar and tumbling drums, opening out into a howled chorus of “Baby, baby, baby.” Pop Pop Pop has angular beats and electronic rumbles that recall the indie dance sound of LCD Soundsystem – unsurprising given that the band’s James Murphy and Nancy Whang pop up on backing vocals on Dancer. Grace keeps threatening to launch into another fiery rage but never does, maintaining a relaxed groove while Talbot repeats: “No god, no king, I said love is the thing.”
The spikiness is still there in places. The song they’ve called Hall & Oates is a beast of a thing. Pray for anyone who gets mixed up and accidentally clicks “play” on this thinking it’s a song named Idles by Hall & Oates. Gift Horse shows they can still do a roared, wind-tunnel chorus when they feel like it, and will sound incredible in a year when the band seem to be playing gigs more nights than they’re not.
That album title is pronounced “Tank” – “with a whiff of the G,” they say. The reality is a sound mostly softer than the name suggests. This soppier Idles could be the one.
