Christmas may have come early for anyone remotely interested in Roddy Woomble and his clan of associates. "Why?" I hear you ask. Simple: Idlewild have just recorded possibly their most exciting two minutes' worth of tape in half a decade or more.
While their Warnings/Promises album, for all its self-reflective intent and soothing initiative, and The Remote Part with its Roddy Goes Pop! approach, boasted several inspiring tunes of their own, not since the days of 'Roseability' or even 'When I Argue I See Shapes' has anyone felt the need to throw themselves around a room as much in elation as overwrought, pent-up, post-adolescent angst to an Idlewild record as much as this one.
The guitars are turned up to 12, the vocal sounds as vitriolic and dismissive as you're ever likely to hear, and it's all over in double-quick time. Cries of "More! More! More!" will resonate all across the land. If 'If It Takes You Home' is to herald a return to the more instinctive days of yore then it's an open-armed welcome from me, and him and her and so on.
So, without further ado, it pleases me to announce that the 'Wild are back. And by the sounds of it, they're wilder than ever.
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9Dom Gourlay's Score