Album Review: IDLES – CRAWLER

IDLES have been finding themselves backed into a corner recently. The bristol-based punk, or post-punk rock band, who hate to be called a punk, or post-punk rock band, have been at it for the better half of a decade, as an effective outlet of distinctly British dissatisfaction for every facet of the British, Tory status quo.

Shining brilliantly against societal issues of toxic masculinity to anti-immigrant sentiment in their best years, the band’s recent releases have been marred with one fairly inevitable problem: they’re simply running out of things to say.

In their prior album, Ultra Mono, IDLES felt too comfortable with how they had been running ship, and their once precise and biting political edge felt dulled and over-generalised. 

CRAWLER comes to us with some promise for a change however, with IDLES enlisting their previous minor collaborator, hip hop heavyweight producer Kenny Beats, to help shape the totality of this project. And, our first track definitely delivers us a new IDLES.

In a deeply disturbing, personal zoom in, MTT 420 RR brings a life-changing tragedy in slow-motion. As layers of simple synth loops and minimalist guitars uneasily build through the song, singer Joe Talbot details each moment of an under-the-influence motorcycle crash he once experienced, an incident whose trauma is loosely borne out across the rest of the album. This track is masterful, bringing us along for this shocking moment in slow-motion. A lot is promised here. 

For better or for worse, we quickly switch back to a familiar sound for the band, with The Wheel providing a driving bass and guitar backing to some classically yelled vocals.

A strong head-banger, but the repeated refrain of “Can I get a hallelujah!” gets a bit annoying beyond a first listen-through. 

Car Crash brings a fresh-sounding, simply aggressive song, with booming drums that hit like a… well, you know. 

The Beachland Ballroom is an absolute highlight, even in spite of the pitch correction being pushed a slight bit awkward for Joe’s singing style. This piece comes as an entirely out of left-field waltzy, crooning number, as powerful guitar stings are blended in with a warm, lush piano, bringing plenty of old to plenty of new.

We are in a place where the echoes of trauma are still clearly fresh in memory, with “the silence ringing for days”, paralysing and destroying. Momentum is reached past the song’s halfway point, with the soulful vocals turning yelled, cracked, with the word “damage” repeated like a mantra.

A discreet tragedy is in the ambiguity of this last verse; it’s hard to know if this song’s ending is a determined cry to find a way to defiantly push through trauma, or if it’s a desperate plea from a soul who can’t take any more.  

Meds brings us another traditional IDLES song, pounding bass, crowd-belting hook. An anthem on placation with masterfully janky guitarwork, and a blaring saxophone solo, it’s a solid crowd song. Which will now likely get lost in IDLES’ backlog of solid crowd songs.

This contrasts with Progress, which brings a final act realisation of just how far our narrating voice has sunk. As evocative as it sounds, it goes a bit further the other way, with production taking all the centre stage and very little of the band’s fingerprint remaining. 

Finally, we reach The End, a more uplifting piece, which acts to wrap up the dark themes of this whole album, declaring “in spite of it all, life is beautiful.”

The rest of the lyrics are simple in describing various states of being, or of pains, and we can wonder if these are various day-to-day mood changes, or are all being felt at once. As untidy of a bow it feels to wrap up the album’s theme, it weirdly comes back around to feeling fitting, as trauma so rarely can be tidied up into a neat, conclusive end. 

This album is struggling with an identity problem in it’s sound: rather than changing up the totality of their feel with the talent of Kenny Beats’ production, we so often just alternate track to track between synth-lead pieces, and the classic raw IDLES style.  

This does not write off the album at all, far from it, as the majority of the cuts are still incredible and refreshing. In the parts where they do manage to stick the landing, with a true integration of the old and new, they have managed to craft some of the most powerful and moving songs of their entire discography here.

If we can get an IDLES as focused and fresh-sounding as we get at the peaks of this for a full album, I’ll be listening to it until my ears bleed. 

 Rating: 6.5/10.