Eight years and four albums down the line, can anyone really explain what the deal is with Idelwild?
The Scottish rock band have gained a following on both sides of the Atlantic that would be unimaginable to most of their peers. While most British indie bands have (justifiably) perished at the Stateside coal-face, Idlewild have prospered, picking up healthy sales and odd celebrity chums. Eddie Vedder, apparently, has been known to physically drag punters into their shows.
If that image fills you with anything other than horror, then Warnings/Promises may well be a record that ticks all your boxes. If, on the other hand, you have struggled to find anything in previous Idlewild records to justify their vaulted position, its 13 cautious, club-footed tracks are likely to keep you nonplussed.
In the three years since the release of their last album, The Remote Part, lead singer Roddy Woomble has decamped to New York. Any evidence of a similarly questing spirit energising the music, however, is pretty thin on the ground. This is depressing stuff – stagnant lyrical miserablism, copping optimistic nods at Morrissey and Curtis but entirely lacking in any poetry, mystery or romance. Timid, by the numbers rock that, while affecting to shake up a transatlantic rumble, falls resoundingly flat.
Much of this can be placed squarely at the feet of Woomble. If you are a fan of his vocal ‘approach’, then perhaps you’ll find the above faults forgivable. For me though, the complacent, characterless tone of his vocals and his inane lyrics are simply too huge a set of obstacles to scale. If a levy were placed on the word ‘loneliness’ – Idlewild would be facing bankruptcy. Show don’t tell? Roddy is very much a tell, tell, tell kinda guy.
It’s noticeable that the moments when Warnings/Promises actually threatens to take flight – ‘I Understand It’ and ‘Not Just Sometimes But Always’ - are also those when the musical backing almost drowns out the frontman. For the rest of the time, he’s plastered inelegantly over every track. And he’s really saying nothing.
Far worse records will be released this week (never mind this year), but, with its absolute refusal of anything approaching ambition or upward vision, few will be so dispiriting.
Back off Eddie, don’t even think about it.