Idlewild
Idlewild
V2
Oct 15, 2025
Internet Unique
Some bands age like tremendous wine, whereas others flip to vinegar. Idlewild’s eponymous new document ought to make 2025 a classic 12 months.
Over the course of 9 albums and from teenage punks to alt-rock elders, their sound has continued to evolve. However this self-titled tenth album—their first in six years—is the place the Scottish band have chosen to lean into the trademark literate indie-rock that attracted a lot of their fanbase within the first place.
Unsurprisingly for a document largely written on singer Roddy Woomble’s Hebridean residence island of Iona and recorded in guitarist Rod Jones’ personal Put up Electrical studio, it’s an album that feels comfortingly acquainted. It’s partly that familiarity that makes this one of many band’s most simply accessible data. Even informal followers whose consideration might have drifted since Warnings/Guarantees, and even The Distant Half, will discover themselves drawn again into the fold after listening to these new songs.
As Woomble himself says of the document in a press launch: “We’re trying again with out being nostalgic—we had been excited about all of the songs we’d made and the brand new songs we had been making. For the primary time we had been referencing ourselves, not in a nostalgic manner, in a constructive, inventive manner, realizing that we had a ‘sound’ and the songs we had been writing ought to rejoice that.”
With 10 tracks unfold over half-hour, Idlewild by no means outstays its welcome. The wailing guitar riff that introduces “Keep Out of Place” delivers a suitably bombastic opening that’s maintained on “Like I Had Earlier than.” There are shades of “American English” and “El Capitan” on “It’s Not the First Time,” which is likely one of the most radio pleasant tracks that Idlewild have ever launched. Opening with Lucci Rossi’s delicate piano motif and boasting an arena-sized refrain, it’s filled with the qualities that elevated the band to their mid-noughties industrial peak.
Woomble’s vocal melodies persistently complement these inside the music. There are not any moments the place they journey over themselves as they might have completed on among the band’s most up-to-date data. Album mid-point “Make It Occur” doesn’t fairly retrace the gloriously frantic punk rock paths of their earliest materials, however its waspish guitar hook positively doffs its cap to their noisier moments.
If there was one criticism of among the band’s post-Parlophone data, it’s that they often petered out after robust openings. The identical can’t be stated right here, due to presumably the strongest closing trio since 100 Damaged Home windows.
“Writers of the Current Time” particularly is a standout observe on a massively pleasing document. Jones’ opening guitar arpeggio hints at Pavement and R.E.M. (each acknowledged as favorites of a number of band members), earlier than the track segues into one more anthemic refrain that can have you ever buzzing it down grocery store aisles.
“Finish With Dawn,” in the meantime, could be the document’s nearer, however its triumphant squall of guitar makes it sound like just the start of one other thrilling period within the band’s historical past. It’s the proper full cease to a document that’s a shot within the arm for followers who’ve caught by Idlewild’s facet for the previous three a long time. (www.idlewild.co.uk)
Writer score: 8/10
