Some people think
IDLES are a shouty-shouty-angry-angry band that are almost perfectly designed for 6Music Dads (and Mums) to fall back in love with music to. And there's a lot of truth in that tbf. But that's only telling half a story. Because somehow, somewhere, in between the 'being hit with a car' brutality of, erm, 'Brutalism', and the lightning-in-a-bottle-holy-shit-this-is-amazing-ism of 'Joy As An Act Of Resistance', they smashed any box they were being put into by the doubters into a million pieces and became one of the most exciting bands around. Mad, innit?
Now, on their third album, they have to face all the challenges that come when you have lost that element of surprise. They sure don't mess around to begin with, the opening 'War' sounding like five angry bears who have woken up to find that not only has Goldilocks eaten their porridge, but she's nicked their fridge and crashed their car too. Shouty-shouty-angry-angry. But, dig a little deeper, and the anti-war message contained within the blitzkrieg of noise shows a band thriving in life's messy contradictions, a thread that runs through much of the record. With singles 'Grounds' and 'Mr Motivator' following swiftly in its destructive wake, it is an exhilarating start - even if it is a pace that they ultimately can't quite keep up this time around.
It's not a flawless record by any means. At points, the album wanders into what are now, perhaps, overly-familiar song topic territories for the band, and the very nature of some of Joe Talbot's lyrics and the social commentary can't help but feel a bit too on-the-nose occasionally. Thematically, if not in sound, it returns to and expands on many of Joe's favourite topics - mental health, self-empowerment, society in general. Always fiercely political on record, that continues here - but it sometimes leads to a feeling of being hit over the head repeatedly by someone arguing with you about something you actually agree with them about if only you could get a word in edgeways. Thankfully, the endearing self-awareness (and self-deprecation) in Joe Talbot's lyrics, a man seemingly always happy to poke fun at himself and his love of killer catchy slogans (while still delivering killer catchy slogans) makes them swerve most of the cliches. And after all, it wouldn't really be an IDLES record if it was an album about the simple pleasures of skipping around the park on a sunny day, would it?
