No one likes to admit that they’re late to the party, but in this case there’s no alternative. Whilst those in the know raved and drooled of Idles, I managed to miss out until, by chance, I caught the band delivering an incendiary live set at Bearded Theory and became hooked. I bought the album, Brutalism, pretty much immediately thereafter and whilst my fingers were itching to do a review it was too late, the boat was well and truly missed and all the well-deserved superlatives were already flying at the band from all directions. Determined not to miss out this time, typically I was out of the country when Joy as an act of resistance appeared on the shelves, but here we are at last, catching up with one of the most strikingly original and powerful bands to hit the boards in some time.
It takes all of about fifteen seconds for the adrenalin to start to flow in colossus as Joe returns to the mic over rhythmic rim shots and huge, astringent drones in a manner reminiscent of Nick Cave in his Grinderman guise. Methodically brutal, it’s one of those tracks that just keeps adding layer after layer of anguished noise, with the resultant pile up of gruelling guitars set to disintegrate. When it all finally breaks down, a moment’s calm is allowed before the band surge forward into a deliriously melodic coda, built around punk guitars and gang-chants that any other band would have released as a single. But then Idles are far away from any other band, and they do things in their own gloriously unique way. Hurtling into the taut stomp of N.F.A.M.W.A.P. guitarists Mark Bowen and Lee Kiernan provide a soundscape that sits between Sonic Youth and McLusky as Joe unleashes a series of barbed asides that pale in comparison to the lacerating assertions of I’m Scum, a track that sees the band sensibly calm the sonic maelstrom just enough to allow Joe’s lyrics space to breathe before plunging into a chorus destined to ignite the crowd at any venue in which the band care to play. With a verse edging into the cellophane sounds of post-punk, Danny Nedelko sounds like Pavement badgering the Clash for a support slot, but it’s the crushing might of Love song that takes the listener by the throat, Joe’s manic delivery bordering on the sociopathic as his lyrics bring a fracturing relationship vividly to life. The first half of the record sees the band return to the droning grandeur of the opening track as the dark June takes a surprisingly vulnerable vocal and casts it adrift in a sea of tortured guitar set against Jon Beavis’ pummelling percussion. It’s an epic piece of song-writing that will leave you with your heart in your mouth as the guitars dissolve into arcing feedback and noise.
Kicking off the second half of the album, Samaritans churns and burns as Joe skewers the clichés people blandly utter in the direction of the depressed with unflinching accuracy. It highlights that Idles, as musically stunning as they are, are all the more powerful for their unsparing portrayal of life in austerity Britain, Joe’s ability to nail social issues in a soundbite surely the envy of the fumble-tongued cretins in politics who seem unable to escape the inane with each and every tweet they unleash upon a long-suffering populace. As a case in point, Television combines sonic frenzy with introspection whilst Great sees the current political turmoil of the UK dissected with a black wit that manages to be both exhilarating and bleak in equal measure. Once again summoning the ghost of McLusky, the thuggish Gram Rock is an arcing display of guitar-mangling fury that will have you kicking over the furniture with unabashed delight, and the Pixies-esque Cry To Me is similarly the musical equivalent of ecstasy as layers of sheet-metal guitar form a dense haze around Joe’s gnarled growl. It leaves only Rottweiler to see the album out; one last sweat-soaked diatribe from an album that stunningly draws upon a variety of genres and influences to create a sound that is all Idles’ own. As the song comes to its catastrophic end, Joe screaming “Keep going, fuck ‘em!” amidst a wall of broken-string, amp-destroying noise, you realise you’ve spent the majority of the record on the very edge of your seat just waiting for what will happen next.
Intelligent, insightful, brutal and bruising, Joy as an act of resistance is an album that perfectly encapsulates the state of the nation, but in a way that is accessible beyond the borders of this small island. Musically, Joy… is everything the band’s startling live show promised that it would be and more. The band’s sonic template is wide, and not since the days of Urusei Yatsura and McLusky has a UK-based band managed to mangle their guitars with such gleeful malevolence. It’s when you start to absorb the lyrics that these snarling vignettes really hit home, however, and you realise that Idles are exactly the band that people need right now. Who knows where Idles will go next, but for now, Joy as an act of resistance is a perfect expression of the times in which we live, delivered with such force that it has the potential to shake the masses out of their media-inspired-stupor at long last. Music as an act of sedition, Idles are essential listening. 10
