LONDON — British rock band IDLES are back in the studio working on a new single after being inspired by a dog eating vomit in front of Buckingham Palace, grossed-out sources report.
“We were on our way to the charity shop to find new mismatching outfits for a photo shoot, and decided to walk past the Palace. This woman was so overwhelmed that she got chunder all over the sidewalk, and this bloke’s dog ran over and started eating it,” said frontman Joe Talbot while grasping a microphone so intensely that his hand is shaking. “I thought to myself, wow, this is brilliant! It can be interpreted as nonsensical or symbolic, all while being comical, but kind of unpleasant to think about. Our fans are gonna love this one.”
Some music critics are questioning the band’s creative process.
“I’ve always appreciated IDLES’ witty takes on the state of British politics, and the general state of the world, but it feels like they’re grasping at low hanging fruit with this concept,” said local music blogger Lauren Piker. “And for a band that vehemently denies being a punk band, this sure seems like something a punk band would write about. I will say though, I could see them returning to the gritty, energetic sound of Brutalism with this one though, which would be exciting.”
Representatives of Buckingham Palace are not thrilled about the band’s plans to write about what they are calling a “PR nightmare.”
“On behalf of his majesty King Charles III and the Royal Family, we kindly ask the band known as IDLES to stay away from Buckingham Palace, and stop trying to besmirch the good public image of the Palace with this vile image,” said Buckingham Palace Representative Patrick Carp. “These hooligans have been staining the United Kingdom’s good name for years, and this latest stunt is particularly upsetting. Also, it is my personal opinion that CRAWLER was utter rubbish”
At press time, IDLES was busy arguing over which stale pop culture references from a decade ago they should include in their new song.
You know those TikTok videos where some guy is like “here’s how to write a [band] song in 30 seconds!” and then just kind of generically breaks down each element of a song by said band? That’s what “Steal This Album!” feels like to me. It’s algorithmically generated System Of A Down. It’s by no means bad, but especially considering it came out only a year after “Toxicity,” it just falls flat. With the exception of the mesmerizing “Roulette” and the whiplash between nonsensical and gorgeous in “I-E-A-I-A-I-O,” it’s just like, a fine album.
As far as a fairly unpolished debut goes, SOAD’s self-titled album goes pretty damn hard. It feels like them at their most distressingly manic, and gives the listener a little taste of what’s to come. It also contains some of the best unhinged Serj vocalizations to scare your mom with. That being said, some tracks can feel repetitive or under-written, which isn’t a deal-breaker, but means that I don’t wind up revisiting this one often. This album is growing on me, though, particularly due to the borderline slap bass that appears from time to time.
While this album undoubtedly has some of the smash hits of this era of SOAD, I can’t help but feel like it lacks a little cohesiveness. And (spoilers) compared to its predecessor, the non-radio tracks tend to blend together more. Maybe that’s the downside of a double album released a few months apart; the first one is always going to hit a bit harder. However, some of my fave standalone songs are on this album, including the often overlooked “Tentative.” And “Vicinity of Obscenity” is like, peak Dada-ist Serj lyricism that remains untouchable. I will yell TERRA COTTA PIE HEY whenever I can. Which isn’t often, but I’m working on it.
I’m going to be perfectly honest: this is my favorite SOAD album and I almost put it at number 1, but after thinking long and hard about it, I realized that I had to be objective about this. Every track on this brings a little something different to the table, and yet it still sounds like it came from the same session. “B.Y.O.B.” is obviously killer, and major kudos to “Radio/Video” for managing to make psuedo-klesmer sound cool. Even some of the lesser known tracks like “Old School Hollywood” utterly fuck, and I’m not just saying that because I really like talkbox vocals, even though that is true and should not discredit me and has nothing to do with the embarrassing results of my Spotify Wrapped.
Ah, yes. The album that got everyone and their cousins who smoke K2 into SOAD. And for good reason–I kind of can’t believe this is only their second album, considering how sprawling and experimental it is. And yet each seemingly discordant piece fits together into a captivating puzzle of a whole. It makes a lot of sense that three of their top five songs on Spotify are from “Toxicity.” It manages mainstream appeal while remaining interesting and unpredictable.
