![]() Beyond that, with their new album, they’ve pushed and refracted their sound in fascinating ways while reining in some of their more egregious lyrical impulses. Finally seeing them in concert at Shaky Knees helped a lot their noise-rock bar-fight approach feels exponentially more potent in the live setting, a reminder that this band is about whipping up gnarly waves of mutilation at least as much as fiercely growled slogans. A year later they’ve made a fan out of me. When Ultra Mono dropped, I was ready to give up on IDLES. Motivator” or solemnly declaring on “Grounds” that “I raise my pink fist and say Black is beautiful.” Maybe it was well-meaning, but it played like self-parody, like the rock ‘n’ roll equivalent of a “Notorious RBG” T-shirt. Viewed through another he is John Oliver, vainly attempting to rattle Donald Trump by calling him “Drumpf.” IDLES pretty clearly aligned themselves with the #resist crowd by naming their second album Joy As An Act Of Resistance in 2018, but they took it several steps farther on last year’s Ultra Mono, an album guitarist Mark Bowen has since described as “kind of like a caricature of our identity that helped us see it for all its flaws.” Despite songwriting input from esteemed influences like David Yow of the Jesus Lizard, Warren Ellis of the Bad Seeds, and Jehnny Beth of Savages, the album’s virtues were overshadowed by lyrics that found Talbot trying way too hard, whether talking about grabbing Trump by the pussy on “Mr. Viewed through one lens, Talbot is Roy Kent from Ted Lasso, a hyper-masculine British ruffian with a warm, gooey heart. ![]() It’s not that I doubted or disagreed with his convictions, it’s just that the way he expressed them sometimes made me cringe. But Talbot’s attempts at progressive political messaging have often made me roll my eyes the same way I do when the Democratic Party establishment tries to be woke. He is clearly a thoughtful, charismatic guy, a knot of muscles and nervous energy at the center of his band’s bombast. Talbot is a commanding presence, too, a ferocious carnival barker capable of whipping his audience into a frenzy. This group’s gruff, explosive spin on post-punk is undeniably rousing. I’ve long found myself caught between the IDLES fanatics and the haters. What is it they say? Garbage’s treasure is another person’s trash? Since releasing their debut album Brutalism in 2017, they’ve become one of the most fiercely beloved new rock bands in the world - and one of the most polarizing. IDLES were playing after dark on one of the smaller stages at the fest, but collective interest in the band suggested they could have easily held down a main-stage slot. The Bristol quintet’s T-shirts were all over Central Park that weekend, particularly on Saturday, when they were set to perform a few hours after Garbage. Manson was far from the only person at Shaky Knees who was excited about IDLES. She also openly thirsted for him, explaining that it’s OK for adults to have crushes on popular musicians and hers is Joe Talbot. ![]() She commended him as a good man who treats women with respect, a rare beacon of decency within the music industry. ![]() Throughout the veteran alt-rock band’s set at the Atlanta music festival two weekends ago, singer Shirley Manson continually sang the praises of the IDLES frontman, her fellow Shaky Knees performer and recent podcast guest. Joe Talbot did not appear on stage with Garbage at Shaky Knees, but he felt like a featured guest.
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