In Idles, Godrich saw a band he could mold, gently, in his image: “I thought it would be interesting to see how they would translate if they were a little more musical, if they sang more,” he said in a recent interview. Indeed, the record opens with a piano, padded drums and Talbot's embossed crown, reminiscent of Chris Martin. Perhaps contrary to a frontman known for roaring, it's the most expressive he's ever heard. On “A Gospel,” a song that originally began as an iPhone demo from Bowen, feathery piano and rippling strings accompany Talbot's intelligent vocals, finding a softness as emotionally powerful as his wildest scream. Closer “Monolith” comes to life with a fuzzy synth and a thin, trembling vocal from Talbot. But here, as his voice melts into a screeching sax, we're left with an impressionistic look, one that lingers after Talbot's last note. It's a welcome approach after a discography full of kitchen-sink phrase soup.
However, even Godrich's influence could not shake the complex of his worst habits. The veteran producer was “surprised and disarmed” to discover Talbot's unorthodox writing style, closer to a rap cypher than a rock frontman, coming into the studio without lyrics, preferring to riff live into the mic. Talbot considered writing before their sessions, but decided it was “nonsense”. As a result, the record has to work around his more bombastic improvisations. There are the interjections of “Fuck the king” at the end of “Gift Horse”, the awkward rhyming of “Freudenfreude” (a German word which is the opposite of schadenfreude, basically feeling joy at the success of others) with “joy in joy ,” on “Pop Pop Pop,” and most blatantly, the clumsy chorus on “Hall & Oates,” an ode to enduring friendship (don't check how the real Hall & Oates are doing) that rivals his son Drake's clear single, Adonis on a reprise of “My man.” Additional vocals from LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy and Nancy Whang on “Dancer” are drowned out by Talbot's coarse, cheek-to-cheek vocals that sound more like a bullfight than a ballroom.
Talbot could take a note from another of his inspirations for the record, Aesop's fable of the North Wind and the Sun. Rather than beating listeners into submission like Aesop's Wind personified, Idles works best when the band builds glowing warmth around Talbot's softer vocals. There's a subtlety to writing about love that Talbot lacks on this record – it's a subject he's often better gestured towards, rather than bossed around. The press materials note that the word “love” appears 29 times throughout the record, and yet the songs that speak to the emotions behind this powerful emotion—the surge of romantic attraction, the fear of abandonment—never mention the theme. . On TANGKThe Idles seem ready to shed their iron armor and reveal a much more interesting and nuanced band once Talbot is ready to let go of his stubborn and self-destructive grasp.
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