Rap. Spoken Word. The flow is slow, often. And precise, all the way. Joe Talbot, standing behind his microphone, takes the time to carefully separate his words, and delivers them with a precision known to those who follow the mosh pits created by the Bristol post-punk band since its first – and brutal – waves of sound in 2009.
Yes, that’s a cumulative 15 years of outrage for IDLES. Already ! Fifteen years and now six studio albums, with the arrival of the new kid, titled TANGK – pronounce “Tank”, with a hint of “g” in the mouth, a tribute to the guitar, this instrument skillfully sprinkled here by Mark Bowen in exploration mode (think Sunn 0)) or even Aphex Twin).
Observation when listening to the cries of the new baby: he cries much less than his big brothers! Listening to the eleven pieces, only three could wake a sleeping family household: Gift Horse, which could have taken place on the album Crawler (2021), the group’s precedent for its precise structure and the emphasis on Talbot’s vocals; Hall & Oatesa brutal, lo-fi punk piece, typical of the late 1970s, reminiscent of the album Joy as an Act of Resistance (2018); And Gratitudea gift piece, a dancing tribute on which the singer proclaims all his love for his audience (in fact, the word “love” comes up 29 times on this record… don’t thank us).
Certainly, there are a few other creaking of eardrums, here and there – notably on Junglewhere piano and guitar dance in tango – but, overall, we are faced with what we call a “mature” album.
The presence of Nigel Godrich and Kenny Beats – who was at the helm of the album Crawler – for the design of TANGK allows Talbot and Co. to explore sounds, instead of blowing them up. Here we are before a dancing, happy, restrained album, where a lot of happy sounds unfold – percussion, strings, wind instruments – which surround the voice of Talbot – sometimes doubled, altered, soft and disturbing, as on Pop Pop Pop – which denounces, again and again, the global evils of the infernal trifecta – racism, misogyny and capitalism.
In the end, we come away from this album saying to ourselves that love, yes, can triumph over everything. “No god/No king/I said love is the thing. » We completely agree with him. Positive message from a group at the top of their art.
Post-punk
TANGK
IDLES
Partisan Records