Last year Bristol‘s punk force IDLES shared their 4th LP, named Crawler.
For the flabbergasting track STOCKHOLM SYNDROME
the band fabricated a new video clip.
Lee Kiernan (guitarist): “The initial idea of the video was to try and visualise the monotony hell of having to work to survive and how the ‘machine’ eventually engulfs you and strips you of your freedoms. But we wanted to achieve this in a metaphorical way that kept the meaning as open as possible. So it becomes rather a visual representation that can be read in many different ways.”
From The Basement is a long-running British TV show with live music, online.
Previous shows include The White Stripes, Radiohead, Jarvis Cocker, Sonic Youth, PJ Harvey, Mark E Smith, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Fleet Foxes, Band of Horses, Queens of the Stone Age, and many more.
A couple of weeks ago Bristol’s passion-punks IDLES descend into the basement
for a high-intensity performance of 7 tracks of last year’s album Crawler.
00:00 – MTT 420 RR
06:51 – Meds
11:19 – Car Crash
15:34 – When The Lights Come On
19:50 – The Wheel
23:32 – The Beachland Ballroom
28:10 – Wizz
IDLES – De Zwerver, Leffinge, Belgium – 2 November 2018
Here’s the original review…
Soon, at the end of the year, Bristol‘s steamrollin’ punks IDLES will be in countless 2018
lists in two categories: best album and best live act. Second longplayer JOY AS AN ACT
OF RESISTANCE catapulted the band into the highest regions of alternative music. It’s an awesome red-hot-blooded record capable of bringing your speakers down, but also, and actually, most of all, this socially committed combo look, act and play like HUMANS – very exciting ones, that is – they write about ALL HUMANS and they do it for us, HUMANS.
Read the gripping interview NME had a couple of months ago with blazing frontman Joe Talbot right hereand you’ll learn that this dynamite squad has a very BIG HONEST HEART!
Blitzkrieg electricity
And then there are their smashing live shows. On a podium, this down-to-earth quintet becomes a blitzkrieg machine blowing your minds unstoppably with emotional force and relentless panache. Yesterday was my fourth live encounter. Another oh-yeah-fucking-hell experience. Explosive every-nerve-in-his-body-is-alive-and-kicking frontman Joe Talbot leads the hair-raising troops but all of his remarkable teammates assist him brilliantly to make the crowd go totally gaga.
Preparing for a deafening Black Sabbath-like finale
Everybody’s screaming, yelling, jumping, cheering, clapping, and sweating with the greater part of the crazed crowd involved in the boiling mosh-pit in the middle of the fired-up venue and at one point many of us, including myself, hit the stage to hop around madly like a bunch of wild kids. Yes, folks, this is what ENTERTAINMENT is all about. Having the time of your life on a night out and returning home, voiceless, with a large smile on your face. Great bands make people feel BLOODY HAPPY! This hot clan is not only great, right now, right here IDLES id the best fucking band on this troubled planet…
If you never heard of them, check this cooking BBC TV performance and
you’ll realize why I’m in a euphoric state during and after an Idles gig…
Bristol’s fury IDLES released their fourth, praised LP CRAWLER last November.
A week ago they started their North American tour and stopped at the studio
of the Stephen Colbert’s Late Show for a brawny version of the LP’s trackCRAWL.
Ounsworth (mastermind): “The songs are politically motivated,
which is unusual for me. It’s about what I think we’re all experiencing
at the moment, certainly here in the United States, anyway, trying
to move forward amidst an almost cruel uncertainty.”
Turn Up The Volume: Riveting tunes, sharp-cutting reflections,
magical sparks, Ounsworth‘s feverish voice, and his glittery guitar
play make this LP the best one since the self-titled 2005 debut.
Bewitching all the way. My 2021 number one
Turn Up The Volume: Finally, Iceage do what they were expected to do for a long
time. Creating a standout album that makes the hair in the back of your neck stand
up. Melodramatic with ardency, impassioned with vigour, emotional with grimness. Charismatic frontman Elias Bender Rønnenfelt leads the troops as never before.
Turn Up The Volume: From outlandish sonority – think Scott Walker – to
Zappa-esque adventurousness, from a ‘normal’ song (Marlene Dietrich) to
free jazz weirdness. The sonic search of this impressively inventive band is
both inscrutable and intriguing.
Cavalcade confirms the experimental brilliance of their debut LP. Miles Davis going post-punk in the 21st Century.
Turn Up The Volume: The drop-dead gorgeous sisters in rock arms Lindsey Troy
and Julie Edwards celebrate their 10th year of producing high-powered turbulence.
Their bond is tighter than ever and their boogie-woogie more varied than ever.
Mind you, don’t expect a jazz record. Deap Vally are still about rocking ‘n rolling
while tackling their demons with vocal bravado and forthright ruminations.
Old skool punk ‘n’ roll? Absolutely. Any good? You betcha!
Amyl and her buddies made another blistering riff-manic-monster of
a hell fucking hell yeah record. Pogo madness is back. Sturm und drang
from start to finish. Holy Moly!
Turn Up The Volume: This black and white pearl is the work of
the romantic Cave crooner meeting the haunting Cave crooner. Idyllic
orchestrations, classical arrangements, and bad seed Warren Ellis
showing, once more, his refined grandeur.
Turn Up The Volume: Manimal and Samara are a poetallica sensation.
A new laser light at the end of a mythical and tenebrous tunnel.
Imagine Sylvia Plath fronting a mind-challenging, noise-exploring band.
Their debut album is a multi-faceted opus in sound and vision. Puzzling poetry
exploring life, death, birth, past, present, and future embedded in titanic thunder
and lighting symphonies going from perplexing metal to chill-out ambient.
Turn Up The Volume: The amplified haziness of Slowdive, the mystifying
soulfulness of Spacemen 3, the multi-layer-constructing skills of My Bloody
Valentine.
Hallucinating soundscapes, synth shadowplays, and guitars dueling with
each other while tireless drums dauntlessly beat, and wailing voices wander
in an enigmatic fog of reverberation.
This is what the (sur)real world of Ghost Patterns sounds like.
Turn Up The Volume: This time the bombastic rockers take another direction
to express their emotiveness. Moody, nostalgic, melancholically romantic with
frontman Brandon Flowers looking back at his teenage years in his hometown
Utah. Think Bruce Springsteen‘s sentimentality on his masterpiece Nebraska.
Overall an emotive and melodramatic
record without going over the top.
For some critics, it’s too mellow.
For me, its gripping mellowness
that works just fine.
Liz Lamere (Vega’s widow) remembers: “Our primary purpose for going into the studio
was to experiment with sound, not to ‘make records. I was playing the machines with Alan manipulating sounds. I played riffs while Alan morphed the sounds being channeled through the machines.’
Turn Up The Volume: Most of the lost albums that eventually came/come to the
surface one day should have stayed lost forever. If they were good enough to be
released the moment they were recorded they would have never ended up in a
smelly cellar or, worst case, in a trash can.
So what about Alan Vega’s lost one? One: it feels special to have the legend back.
Two: the album seems to come from a very dark mind, from the obscure places
of Vega‘s soul, creating a nightmarish and Kafkaesque chill-out atmosphere for
a 30-minute David Lynch film-noir.
Turn Up The Volume: The rap and roll venom of Rage Against The Machine, the
fuck-you-hypocrites grimness of Black Flag, the punky saxophone of X-Ray-Spex,
the sharp poetic spit and sneer anarchy of Mark. E. Smith, the challenging spirit
of open-minded-and-ass-kicking-anti-establishment doom and gloom crusaders.
Sounds like 2021, like the end of the world as we know it.
Turn Up The Volume says: Like Pavement going prog rock with the sound- exploring
state of mind of Mogwai. Jazzy and classical music textures make sure your curious mind
is focused all the time. And singer Isaac Wood‘s voice resonates freakishly identical to the chilling voice of American songwriter Conor Oberst from indie band Bright Eyes.
It’s not a happy record, but who needs a tsunami of cheesy pop tunes in these science-fiction-like times, anyway. I know it’s their first time, but these hungry noise crusaders
will stun us again in the future.
Turn Up The Volume wrote: Gusto, high-spiritedness, and anxiety are the
keywords here. This warm-blooded record is a heart-rending reflection of the
group’s state of 2021 mind. A galvanizing collection of cohesive poignant emo
songs influenced by the disturbing way our troubled world is handling human
issues, once-in-a-lifetime dramas, and the personal turmoil of frontwoman Eline Chavez.
Her soul-stirring and powerful (Aretha Franklin / young Tina Turner) vox, the weeping
guitars, and the electrical intensity are at times overwhelming and heartbreaking. Impressive!
Turn Up The Volume: The essential message of this new powerhouse album is loud and clear: noise-challenging turbo Pink Room is here to stay! Their tsunami energy is beyond any decibel regulation. Again, loudmouth Bart Cocquyt leads the rip-roaring trio.
As I said before his vocal range is out-of-this-world. He easily could front a death metal band (Stay Black/Stay White) or a Nirvana reunion (Losing/Skin) or kick Ozzy Osbourne‘s ass (Hail Satan). Expect ear-shattering jackhammers, over-the-top frenzy, and clamorous lockdown paranoia.
Putain, putain, c’est vachement bien, nous sommes quand même tous des bohemiens.
Three years ago Bristol‘s red-boiling punk gang IDLES made a spectacular appearance
on the British TV show ‘Later… with Jools Holland’ playing a fiery version of ‘Danny Nedelko‘ from their second LP.
At one point cameramen had no clue what was going on.
Brilliant! Watch the tumultuous performance here…
