It feels wrong to call Idlewild veterans. Not least as it sounds like they served in a war (a rock war maybe *devil horns emoji*) but also that they can’t possibly be old enough to even consider such a moniker.
Except they formed 30 years ago. Their first single was in 1997, and we’re all in our mid-forties. Thirty years before Roddy, Rod, Colin, and Bob first plugged in, The Beatles were releasing Rubber Soul, and they hadn’t even invented heavy rock yet, not for another two years.
When Idlewild first inflicted themselves on an unprepared audience, they were loud, brash, confrontational, and purveyors of two-minute post-hardcore condensed chaos. A flight of stairs falling down a flight of stairs, as Fierce Panda described them. Pent-up teenage angst or cathartic release, call it what you will, as the millennium rolled to a close and the years fell away like history dissolving in the Scottish rain, a calmness fell on the boys from Edinburgh.
Roddy was always poetic; you just couldn’t always tell what the poem was about. Perhaps lazily, by 2002, and their third full-length LP, The Remote Part, they were being described as more REM than Black Flag. They still had their moments, but the quieter moments from the 2000 LP,100 Broken Windows, which probably perfectly distilled the ideal balance of the two faces of Idlewild, were more frequent, and an orchestra was more likely than a 160-second frenzy of distortion. And that’s ok.
They’ve reached a point where they seem very comfortable. Despite being on V2 Records, which has changed hands from and back to Universal, they appear to do all this at their own pace. Six years down the line from Interview Music, which is the longest gap without an intended hiatus between records, they’ve come back with Idlewild, eponymous and emphatic.
‘Stay Out Of Place’ still has the roaring and squalling guitars of Rod Jones, Roddy has perfected his mid-range voice, which is a gentle croon on the chorus. It is as anthemic as you’d want the 21st-century Idlewild. Perhaps a slow burner, but it will get under your skin and feel like a ‘You Held The World In Your Arms’.
‘Like I Had Before‘ steps it up a notch. Rolling home. Wheels turning. Maybe a look in the rear view mirror at two and a half decades disappearing over the horizon.
‘It’s Not The First Time’ encapsulates the balladry and beauty in their songwriting. Roddy in his Hebridean home and then Rod and the rest of the band manage to match a wild Irish Sea melody and evoke cold, grey skies and freezing turquoise waves.
Calling this LP Idlewild feels like some kind of era-defining exclamation mark. Not necessarily a full stop, but this will be more irregular than they have been. Perhaps.
If you decide to pair playing this and then looking back at their early LPs, there is a sudden realisation of how underappreciated, en masse, Idlewild are. An unwavering dedication to doing things the way they want to. I’m sure their fans from the very beginning probably all don’t or didn’t appreciate the move from the anarchic live shows and frenetic punk ethos; however, maybe it takes middle age to really appreciate the nuance, the poetry, the melody, in conjunction with the balanced, punchy, spiky guitar that defines Idlewild’s sound.
