Firstly RRC wants to wish all our subscribers a Happy New Year and welcomes to the first curated release of 2022. After a busy end to the year for the RRC staff, we are privileged to present Crawler by Idles as our curated album for January 2022.
Crawler was released in November of 2021 and was the fourth full-length release from Idles after the extremely well-received ‘Ultra Mono’ of 2020. Idles have had a meteoric rise to become one of the best bands in the UK thanks to their unrelenting, seething, and juggernaut stylings.
Idles post-punk sound was fine-tuned over three albums with a crescendo which saw them secure the coveted UK number one spot in 2020 with Ultra Mono, but as the band have made clear since its release Ultra Mono was a parody of themselves intended to destroy the old and create a new sound. This intention has been fully realised as Idles have arisen from the ashes of their own incineration like a phoenix, Crawler is a new beast which sees Idles reincarnated, but not without some of their inimitable propulsive style intact.
Crawler starts off as an introspective album with Joe Talbot reminiscing on his nearly fatal car crash on ‘MTT 420 RR’, through a soundscape which sounds as if it has been created especially by Hollywood legendary director, and composer John Carpenter for them, Joe’s lyrics are dark and disturbing, but unlike his previous lyrical content, they show a level of introspection not seen previously.
The Idles engine which sits idle, pardon the pun, on the title track roars back into action on track two ‘The Wheel’ where the propulsive energy which made them darlings of activists the world over who were seeking a new sound over the last few years to attach to their causes, but the song is inflicted with a dark, and grimey energy not seen previously. What is certainly not lost on listeners of a certain age, namely myself, is how bassist Adam Devonshire might have been listening to Nick Oliveri era Queens Of The Stone Age when he came up with that hammering bass line.
The album continues to excite cerebrally through tracks such as ‘The Beachland Ballroom’, ‘Progress’, and ‘Car Crash’ which unfold and test the boundaries the band created for themselves, and the box
es they were put into by critics and fans alike, but then with tracks like ‘The New Sensation’ the band have a little fun with their audience which is reminiscent of their live shows.
For those who will undoubtedly rue Idles experimentality and dislike their moving forward by looking to create new atmospheric musicality, and a deeper lyrical palette through introspection, the band have slipped in ‘Crawl’ which would not sound out of place on any of their three previous albums, giving the fans that classic Idles grit for four minutes and twenty seconds.
So as a new year starts here at RRC we are happy to welcome a reshaped Idles into our lives, and yours, so we are proud to offer Crawler as our curated choice for January 2022.
All the best Stu - RRC
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