By: David Williams
Score 6.7/10
Imagine you're in the United Kingdom, watching a thrilling soccer match come down to the wire. The team you're supporting gives up a last-second losing goal, transcending you into a state of madness with steam flying out your ears like a cartoon character. You need some release. A vibe that will pump your blood full of righteous rage. The Bristol post-punk band Idles has been the gasoline fueling that anger with an aggressive soundtrack of unhinged vocals by lead singer Joe Talbot.
Idles have returned with their fifth studio album, TANGK (pronounced TANK). Their previous critically acclaimed album, Crawler, was their magnum opus on England's ongoing political struggles, from Brexit to the undermined working class. Their newest record takes musket-filled shots at the King of England, Charles III. They went about it with the subtly of a stampede of Rhinoceroses and with the ferociousness of a bunch of ravenous hyenas.
Suppose Crawler was the day full of political protest, petition signing, and teeing off at the government. Then TANGK is the night-filled celebration at the closest disco tech for a well-done job. Supplying the kind of songs that a silk suit-wearing John Travolta would be dancing to, chest hair showing and all. Here, he has New York band LCD Soundsystem bringing Idles to the dance floor with heavy bass and uptempo drums. The two songs they contributed to, "Gift Horse" and "Dancer," are energetic and also contain wonky lyrics of how Talbot dances "Shoulder back, chest out/I'm poised like a goddamn ape, so to speak." (Pro tip: if you see Talbot or someone looking like a primate in heat on the dance floor, get out of their way with the speed of a gazelle.)
Idles left most of their orneriness at the door, showing us a different version of themselves we haven't seen much of. On the softer side of the production, handled by veterans Kenny Beats and Nigel Godrich, "IDEA 01" has a glistening piano key intro, and "Monolith" has a jazzy saxophone outro, but something is still missing. Talbot sounds lost in the production. Where does he go if you take away his bull in a china shop anger? You can't yell through a song that sounds like it can cosplay for elevator music. "Roy" has Talbot peppering nonstop questions to a love interest. This is a life-deprived version of 50 Cent's song "21 Questions." They voluntarily caged their rage for most of the album, leaving them out of their natural sonic habitat.
A return to form comes to us in the shape of the glam-rock banger "Hall & Oates." A song about establishing a brotherhood with your friends. Talbot brings his trademark silverback boisterous delivery, singing, "I loved my man from the very start/He turned forgiveness into an art/You'll never tear us apart." Although it can't be a good omen dedicating a song to your friends when today the actual Hall and Oates hate each other with a hot rage of 1000 suns.
When you think of Idle's music, your mind immediately ventures to music that you get into a bar fight with and, by chance, wack someone over the head with a half-drunken beer bottle. It's a chaotic assault of the senses. TANGK is missing that endorphin-filled energy instead of delivering ballad-injected tender songs. There's nothing wrong with maturing with your music as long as you can stick to the landing, which has mixed results. Now, seemingly, Idles has grown with the times. But, who do we now turn to for rambunctious soccer hooligan music, Oasis?