17 February 2024

Press photo by Tom Ham

Bristol punks IDLES have worked their
way up since 2018 with 4 splendid LPs.

And they have their brand-new number 5 out now. It’s baptized TANGK.

Joe Talbot (frontman): “I needed love. So I made it. I gave love out to the world and
it feels like magic. This is our album of gratitude and power. All love songs. All is love.”

Pitchfork: On their fifth album, the UK band enlist Nigel Godrich and Kenny Beats for a smoother, softer rock record that still fires its love songs from a cannon. There’s a subtlety
to writing about love that Talbot misses on this record—it’s a topic that’s often best gestured
at, rather than bossed around. Press materials note that the word “love” appears 29 times throughout the record, and yet the songs that speak to the feelings undergirding that powerful emotion—the exhilaration of romantic attraction, the fear of abandonment—don’t mention the topic directly at all. On TANGK, Idles seem poised to let down their ironclad armor and reveal a far more interesting and nuanced band, just as soon as Talbot is ready to relinquish his stubborn and self-defeating grasp.” Score: 6.7/10.

TUTV: It’s an album about love. Joe Talbot: “I find love fascinating and empowering” .
The weird thing is that Talbot doesn’t sound happy, or in love. On half of the songs,
his voice has a moody crooner resonance. Yes, half of the tracks are mixed-emotions lullabies.

Yes, their punk days, sonically and lyrically, are behind them. Surely, copying themselves over and over again, and pretending they’re the very same people as 6 years ago, would get boring. But I miss the fury, the moshpit haymakers and the slam dunks. Tangk is a good record with some rad highlights (Dancer, Grace, Hall & Oates and Jungle) but nothing more, nothing less.

Singles/clips: Dancer / Grace / Gift Horse

– DANCER –

– GRACE –

– GIFT HORSE –

ALBUM

.
TOUR DATES 2024
More shows TBA

IDLES: Instagram – Linktree