Calling all romantics! Love is back on the menu for Bristol’s angriest band IDLES, who bring a hunka (hunka) burning punk in the shape of their fifth album Tangk. This time around the only aggression on offer is how aggressively they are gonna love you – and, by God, they gonna love you hard.
But don’t go cowering in the corner just yet, because this “tough love” is the antidote we have all been waiting for. Tangk is like Tigerbalm on a bruise – a record that will punch you in the face for sure, but this time the bare knuckles are covered with a velvet glove.
Rampaging out the stable with the thumping heartbeat of ‘Gift Horse’ – skittish guitars, a blitzkrieg chorus – it’s immediately obvious IDLES are operating in unchartered territory. ‘Pop Pop Pop’ extolls the idea of freudenfreude – literally “joy on joy” – but hems you in with expansive beats and miles of paranoid loops. There is no easy path to redemption here, which I guess is the whole point. You must work for love, through the good and the bad.
Key to this shift in sensibility is the inclusion of co-producers Nigel Godrich (Radiohead, The Smile) and Kenny Beats (Vince Staples, JPEGMAFIA) alongside IDLES’ own befrocked hairy monster Mark Bowen, who combine to pull at the band’s established template whilst still retaining its key identity.
All of this arms the band with the ability to attempt and succeed in entirely new directions with simmering confidence. ‘A Gospel’ is pure and plaintive, the ultimate breakup record and a highpoint for the album, ‘Grace’ is smart and contemporary, catapulted forward by a bassline that echoes Joy Division at their most menacing.
That’s not to say that pogoing and casual violence is off limits. ‘Hall & Oates’ jumps up and down in the purest expression of male desire and ‘Jungle’ crunches guitars and spits idioms – “I found myself under a Scotsman’s boot / They proceeded to fill me in” – hey! it’s all part of the process.
Tangk is all love. Whether that’s expressed through gritted teeth or not, it’s presented so succinctly and full of texture and colour, it’s impossible not to be seduced by the message. IDLES have figured out there’s only so many times you can musically kerb-stomp your audience before it blunts the senses. Their new superpower hits much harder like this.
Love is here to stay, even if it takes the shape of a breathless, sonic headlock. Now, beg for submission and get over here and hug me, damn you.