IDLES have unveiled the second part of the video for their latest – really very good – single, ‘The Beachland Ballroom’.
While the first version featured an extreme close-up of frontman Joe Talbot, the new take features the full band performing. Honestly, it looks like Joe is in a wind tunnel, trying to get to the camera. Maybe that’s the idea? Answers on a not-a-punk-band postcard to the usual address.
‘The Beachland Ballroom’ is taken from the band’s new album, ‘CRAWLER’. The follow-up to last year’s ‘Ultra Mono’, it’s set to arrive on 12th November via Partisan Records. 14 tracks long, it was recorded at Bath’s Real World Studios during the COVID-19 pandemic, and co-produced by Kenny Beats and guitarist Mark Bowen.
Speaking about ‘The Beachland Ballroom’, Talbot explains: “It’s the most important song on the album, really. There’s so many bands that go through the small rooms and dream of making it into the big rooms. Being able to write a soul tune like this made me go, fuck – we’re at a place where we’re actually allowed to go to these big rooms and be creative and not just go through the motions and really appreciate what we’ve got. The song is sort of an allegory of feeling lost and getting through it. It’s one that I really love singing.”
“I didn’t know Joe could sing like that,” Bowen adds. “He’s been trying to write ‘Be My Baby’ since the very beginning, but he didn’t want to be the punk guy wearing the Motown clothes. He wanted it to feel natural, and this song is.”
