IDLES have ridden the wave of post-punk adulation, particularly in the UK, but they’re not without detractors. Cliches have been an issue. Yet album three finds the band, stung by dismissive press, coming out with their pencils sharpened, so to speak. Vocalist Joe Talbot, turning from politics to first-person dark, near-death experiences, ratchets up the white-hot intensity, while the band tests the tight musical confines of the genre. To a point. They’re no hooks or obvious bows to the marketplace here. And really, this stuff either raises the hair on the back of your neck or – inexplicably -it doesn’t.
-Jeff McCord
