IN REVIEW: IDLES - "Ultra Mono"

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Becoming one of the UK's biggest buzz bands of the last five years while also being touted as forerunners of a new, politically minded and important post-punk movement, IDLES were bound to catch a little flak along the way. When their second full-length, 2018's Joy As An Act of Resistance, was a smash hit among fans and critics, it was all but assured that their next album would be scrutinized much more closely.

Well, it certainly has been; Ultra Mono, their third LP, was released amid a cloud of criticism from some of their lesser-known peers, detractors who questioned their punkness, their sincerity and their usefulness in fighting the good fight, whatever that means these days. Though at the root there are perhaps some valid concerns, most of it comes off as sour grapes; no matter the genre or era, the band that gets the attention will get shade from the ones who can't.

It's really no surprise that IDLES was the band that broke from the crowd in this respect; their messages aren't typically coated in cryptic prose, and their tunes are by and large more simplified. That hasn't changed on Ultra Mono, a record that's somehow both their most relentless and their most accessible. The band take the most direct path in most situations, which results in a record that goes and goes and goes, Joe Talbot's barked diatribes accompanying energetic, movement-inducing backing tracks near the point of absolute fatigue before taking a couple of brief reprieves, the first of which being a slight, 30-second piano intro to the thrashing, stomping Kill Them With Kindness.

Will Ultra Mono change any of their detractors' minds? Absolutely not. Will it rally the world to action? Also no, probably. Still, it's an attempt to communicate something other than doom and gloom or brainless, lowest common denominator drivel. IDLES are a positive band with a positive message; in tense, negative, fucked up times like this, that should honestly be enough.

September 25, 2020 • Partisan
Highlights Grounds • Mr. Motivator • Reigns

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