If you call your album after yourselves – particularly when you’ve been a band for 30 years – you’re making a statement. That’s exactly what Idlewild have done here, and it feels like they know it.
“Stay Out Of Place” opens the record on a wall of noise, but just as quickly those classic Idlewild dynamics take hold. The band’s knack for tension and release, for rawness balanced with melody, is stamped all over it.
There’s a more pop-leaning, almost Strokes-like feel to “Like I Had Before”, while the expansive “It’s Not The First Time” pulls off that uniquely Idlewild trick of being both intimate and anthemic. They’ve always had a way of making the big moments feel effortless, and this is no exception.
Roddy Woomble deserves bonus points for once again singing in his own accent, and there’s something deeply, recognisably Scottish about “(I Can’t Help) Back Then You Found Me”. That authenticity runs right through the record.
Elsewhere, “The Mirror Still” offers a slice of dissonant weirdness, before “Make It Happen” drives forward on a scuzzy punk riff and a youthful burst of energy. That momentum carries through into “I Wish I Wrote It Down”, which finds joy in life’s little moments.
The pulse of “Permanent Colours” explodes into its chorus as Woomble declares “I want more to life”, and “Writers Of Present Time” feels positively uplifting in its melodic sweep.
It all concludes with “Ends With Sunrise”, its hook – “I’m sorry that I came back” – shining a light on the record’s themes of struggle and renewal. The interplay of harmonies here is up there with the very best of Idlewild’s catalogue.
“Idlewild” is a statement, then, but also a reminder. This is Idlewild in 2025, and it’s the best they’ve sounded in years.
Rating: 8/10
