IDLES may want to move on from their earlier work, but as good as this album sounds, you can’t escape the feeling that it’s missing their previous spark
Let’s be honest, IDLES whole thing is a bit much; the silly little hipster hats, the constant fucking earnestness, and now they’re doing AI deepfakes of classic Coldplay videos. There’s always been the sense that maybe it’s all too deliberate and gimmicky; the old question of authenticity. It was a nagging doubt that you could put aside when their early work was good enough to speak for itself. But as their success grows, that question becomes increasingly difficult to ignore and it’s almost become a malign influence pushing them in the wrong directions, leaving a band with very little to say on TANGK.
I never particularly bought into the criticism that they were no more than sloganeering posers. Of course, there were plenty of slogans, but they were attached to real issues, real criticisms, and real characters. The music was exhilarating and the messaging felt vital. But each album cycle since their 2018 breakthrough has seen them pushing back against what brought them to the fore; they don’t wanna just be that angry band. Which leads to their pitch for this album where the mission statement is to make people feel not think. The problem is they used to do both.
A cynical reading of that mission statement is that it’s acting as a preemptive defence against the lack of depth on this album. After the confused re-tread of 2020’s Ultra Mono, they did seem to be pushing into exciting new territory on 2021’s CRAWLER, but this feels like a half-hearted step backwards.
As much as I’ve set this up as a negative review, the album is actually quite good. They may never have sounded better, which makes the significant flaws all the more frustrating. Working again alongside hip-hop producer, Kenny Beats, they’ve also enlisted long-time Radiohead producer, Nigel Godrich, and the production is largely excellent. Every beat and every note comes through crystal clear and hits perfectly, with just enough of an underlying industrial abrasion to maintain a warped edge. But I’ll always take songs over sonics; and it often feels like the well-refined production is masking a lack of new ideas.
The opening song title of IDEA 01 is a bit on-the-nose. An ominous kick-drum rhythm is undercut by twinkling magic, leading into a slow-burning piano ballad. It sounds great, but it doesn’t really go anywhere. It has the feel of an unfinished sketch of a song, which is a recurring problem. Whether it’s the similarly gentle, A Gospel, or the foreboding industrial post-punk of POP POP POP; there’s too many moments which don’t deliver a payoff beyond their brooding atmospherics. This would be fine if they were shorter interludes or the big emotional climaxes were delivered elsewhere. But they account for around a third of the album and the sense of visceral catharsis, which IDLES excel in, is in short supply.
He may have been heavy-handed in the past but frontman, Joe Talbot, usually had something to say. Now, perhaps emboldened by working with Kenny Beats, he seems to have taken an almost freestyle rap approach to his lyricism, which often results in couplets of empty gibberish. The one song which really lives up to the album’s mission statement is standout, Roy. The lyrics may not be as blunt as Talbot has been in the past, but you can feel the struggle and redemption beneath it, delivering a well-earned emotional release.
Otherwise, some of the album’s most powerful moments (at least initially) come when Talbot leans on his old sloganeering crutches. Like the “Fuck the King”, “No God, No King” lines on Gift Horse and Grace. They make great, hard-hitting sound-bites but, unfortunately, once the initial feeling wears off, you’re left thinking. And, without any clear message beneath them, their impact is diluted.
I also have to mention how annoying the “Love is the fing” line from Grace is. This isn’t a criticism of regional accents; I’ve got one, some of my favourite artists sing with them. But there’s something extremely performative and unnatural about emphasising it in such a way that it can’t help but feel inauthentic, as if playing it up to lend yourself working class credibility. It’s like a tourist in a gift shop-shirt that a local would never wear. Plus, that cockney-adjacent F instead of Th pronunciation is just fucking infantile.
I’m sure IDLES would balk at such heavy comparison to their previous work. But, when you know what an artist does well, it’s only natural to realise when they’re no longer doing that. The more that Talbot tries to escape being pigeonholed with the angry tag, the more it feels like gimmickry overtakes authenticity. They’ve never been better technically, but they’ve never been less interesting.
Rating:
Best tunes: Gift Horse, Roy, Hall & Oates
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