On TANGK, IDLES Find Love in the Apocalypse: Review
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The post On TANGK, IDLES Find Love in the Apocalypse: Review appeared first on Consequence.
“Love is the thing,” IDLES vocalist Joe Talbot repeats throughout the band’s triumphant fifth album TANGK. They’re all love songs, each and every one — the band wants you to know this in every press release and promotional note, on every new piece of IDLES merchandise, in every live show they play. You could certainly argue that IDLES’ entire discography are love songs; their politically-fueled themes almost always revolve around care, empathy, respect, and anti-monarchy and anti-colonialist ideologies.
Somehow, as they achieved on their stunning 2021 effort CRAWLER, IDLES have found a way to make love songs sound remarkably dissonant. The songs on TANGK are not beaming offerings of personal joy, nor are they universal messages of peace and harmony — and anytime a song feels like it’s approaching one of these modes, a warbling synth or buzzing guitar flies in to offset the feeling. IDLES know there is no release without tension. There is no relief without pain.
Much is owed to IDLES’ obsession with balance, tone, and dynamics on TANGK. It feels like a logical continuation from CRAWLER, which served as the band’s most personal and experimental work at the time. Despite TANGK‘s fiery album cover and title, CRAWLER is still IDLES’ most explosive record. They turned their tightly-wound post-punk — and thematically, Joe Talbot’s experience surviving a grisly car accident — into an industrial nightmare, equally blissful and cathartic as it was deeply unnerving. TANGK continues along this path, letting Talbot’s experiences as a father, a brother, a son, a citizen of England, and a recovering addict fuel the band’s visceral exercises in contrast.
But perhaps the largest adjustment comes from the addition of Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich behind the boards. Godrich produced TANGK along with IDLES guitarist Mark Bowen and regular collaborator Kenny Beats, which, on paper, could very easily result in three wildly contrasting cooks in the kitchen. Instead, Godrich takes IDLES’ established sound and tempers it like chocolate.
Talbot often sings into a microphone with a caustic lack of atmosphere, almost like he’s in a quiet room muttering directly to the listener. The band does not propel themselves into the usual frenzied punk explosions, like on fan favorites “Never Fight a Man with a Perm” or “Mr. Motivator” — the full-fledged chorus release that would be anticipated on “Dancer,” “Gratitude,” and album highlight “Roy” becomes twisted into something odd and incomplete.
TANGK seems to delight in these grey areas and contradictions. Mark Bowen and Lee Kiernan’s droning guitars can take an overwhelmingly positive sentiment to a much darker place — “Dancer,” for all its on-the-floor ecstasy and its bacchanalian premise, features a dueling guitar part so syncopated and fragmented that it’s actually hard to dance to. Bowen’s fizzing, anxious synth work is all over TANGK — it makes songs like the hypnotic “POP POP POP” feel like seances, and the violent atmosphere that seeps into “Grace” is enough to call Talbot’s desperate faith into question.
And then there’s “Roy,” an instant IDLES classic that feels like a companion piece to CRAWLER‘s “The Beachland Ballroom.” But where “The Beachland Ballroom” bloomed into a passionate waltz, “Roy” seems to cave in on itself. It would have been so easy for drummer Jon Beavis to launch into the chorus with a similarly waltzed groove, but instead, he marks the refrain with rapid-fire snare hits. It makes Talbot’s desperate cries of “Baby” feel strangely lopsided, and emphasizes Adam Devonshire’s majestic low harmony.
On TANGK, Talbot briefly returns to his mode of offering frank, direct phrases, such as the aforementioned “Love is the thing” motif and the song “Hall & Oats,” an ode to Talbot’s brother that features the vocalist howling “I love/My man, I love” and “I really really love my brother.”
But occasionally, Talbot wades into the same waters that made CRAWLER so affecting. “Gift Horse,” for the most part, is a sweet and rousing dedication to Talbot’s daughter — but the song’s most crucial moment arrives in the bridge when he highlights her innate question of authority, even at such a young age. “Ask us to kneel and bow to the floor/ She say no and she ask what for,” Talbot sings like it’s a nursery rhyme, later spitting one of the album’s most indelible lines: “Fuck the King/ He ain’t the King, she’s the King!”
Even deeper are Talbot’s ruminations on death, addiction, and failure. “Jungle” and “Gratitude” both outline fraught, occasionally violent scenes before Talbot offers resolution: “Save me from me/ I’m found, I’m found, I’m found” and “That gratitude cuts through my veins/ I hold my hand up and I’m awake.” While not all of Talbot’s poetic references make sense or even feel accessible, the band is intent on living in this cloudy space.
IDLES are a big band now. They’ve made it a long way from the Bristol clubs they began in 15 years ago. They’ve transformed from a marquee name leading the pack of a post-punk movement to a global vehicle, quadrupling their streaming numbers in the process. An album in 2024 full of love songs from this band — a successful, capital-R rock band with the capacity to explode like colorful fireworks — could very easily falter.
But IDLES have been uncompromising with their sonic language. They still seem to make songs the only way they know how: from a place of both liberation and pain. Their album of love songs can only sound like this, because they know that to truly love unconditionally is easier said than done. After all, love can be — and often is — tortured. The world around IDLES may be falling apart, but IDLES’ tenacity isn’t an omen for the apocalypse. It’s a tender plea.
Ed. Note: Get tickets for IDLES’ upcoming 2024 North American tour here.
On TANGK, IDLES Find Love in the Apocalypse: Review
Paolo Ragusa
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