Boards
Advance look: Idlewild- Post-electric blues
In 2002 Idlewild reluctantly stared success in the face, squaring up like Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant, flexing their 24 inch pythons and strutting around the ring, pretending to be superstars. They had just released The Remote Part, an album that surprised critics, fans, perhaps even themselves and found them playing in venues much bigger than they were used to. Roddy acted as frontman accordingly, touching the hands of fans in the front rows, scanning the venues and making eye contact with their newly-enlarged crowd, but it was clear that this was never something they felt comfortable with and after a bout of fisticuffs and the departure of bassist Bob Fairfoull they went away and recorded Warnings/Promises. Like its predecessor, the album surprised both critics and fans, this time because the energy and electricity of The Remote Part had been replaced with a collection of comparatively tame folk songs - still retaining the pop-sensibilities of their earlier records - but the sudden reduction in volume lost them a lot of support. Poor chart positions left them without a label and in need of something to bring back the departed fans. Make Another World, for a short while, was that record. On the surface it was a return to form rock album, but on repeated listens it became apparent that we had been duped, for beneath the overdriven guitars and thumping drums was an unprecedented lack of melody and many who previously thought it fantastic now regard it as one of the band's worst. The five-piece spent the last year re-learning and re-visiting their entire back catalogue from the frantic, instrument thrashing beginnings of Captain through to this, their latest effort Post-Electric Blues via the medium of the now fashionable album shows – a brave move considering no-one had heard the 11 new songs. The record, complete with tantalising extras, was only available to pre-order directly from the band, choosing to avoid record label complications (for now at least), offering a rare first listen to fans and after a two month delay it started appearing through letterboxes at the end of this week.
http://www.godisinthetvzine.co.uk/content/content_detail.php?id=3427&type=Features