Glastonbury Festival 2019: The British punk quintet Idles, who had released their startling debut album “Brutalism” just two years earlier, is currently performing their energetic pro-multiculturalism song “Danny Nedelko”. The two guitarists – one of them only wears underpants – occasionally jump into the audience while the bass guitar roars and the drummer drums precisely as if he had been programmed. And in the middle of the stage stands front man Joe Talbot, who has his gaze fixed on the raging audience. Again and again he hits himself on the chest, raises his fist and stomps on the floor as if a Tory member were lying in front of him. But at the last chorus, Talbot, who is visibly overwhelmed by the response to this meaningful song, lets the heated audience roar alone. With tears in his eyes he looks stunned into the crowd until his wife comes on stage and comforts him.
Punks are allowed to cry too.
So we note: Idles are not only a great live act, but also more than a dull punk band. More clearly than ever before, on their fourth record, “Crawler”, an actually very soulful voice shimmers beneath the rabid roar of Joe Talbot – for example in the song “The Beachland Ballroom”, which sounds like the bolder version of an old Motown classic.
The album was again made together with rap producer Kenny Beats – and just a few months ago the group was selling T-shirts with the words “IDLES IS HIP-HOPPY” on them. There is something to it, because the music of the Idles, in its direct juxtaposition of harmony and brutality, is often more reminiscent of Kanye West’s radical masterpiece “Yeezus” than of that Sex pistols or The clash; especially on “crawlers”.
The record is off to a fantastic start. Instead of distorted electric guitars or driving drums, the opener “MTT 420 RR” begins atypically with smoky synthesizers, through which Joe Talbot breathes clear the dark setting of the album: “It was February / I was cold, and I was high”, he sings while the song builds up. What is meant is a traumatic time in which Talbot was addicted – just like his mother. “I got on my knees / And I begged my mother / With a bottle in one hand / It’s one or the other”, says the appropriately titled track “The Wheel”, which is supposed to illustrate the endless vicious circle of addiction. Shortly afterwards the bloody song “Car Crash” continues, which is also based on a personal experience and lives up to its name, especially in the last 30 seconds.
With “Crawler” you don’t always know immediately what Talbot is about to say
Basically the lyrics are again less dull and striking than on the previous album “Ultra Mono”, which according to the band was intentionally designed and (maybe because of that?) Reached first place in the British album charts. Instead, on the Ablum “Crawler” one does not always immediately know what exactly Talbot is about to say – and that is very good. “The tapping of the feet seem loud / There’s a girl in a whirlwind cloud / I danced with a Spaniard man / ‘Til we had no breath left in our pounding chests”. We’ll just leave it there, right?
But one thing is certain: the key message of the Idles is still that one can ultimately emerge positively from a traumatic experience. “In spite of it all / Life is beautiful,” roars Joe Talbot at the end, sounding as dogged as it is emotional. Aggression and sentimentality go hand in hand here – and result in a slap in the face that is gratefully accepted.