Idlewild - No Emotion (Sequel)
4/5
By: Jacob Dunkley
It has to be hard to keep a band together when your singer moves across the ocean; that's fact, not fiction. Maybe that's why Idlewild's last album length offering ('Warnings/Promises') was not a patch on even the preceding 'Remote Part'. So with Roddy being able to air some of his demons via a solo record last year, Idlewild finally bless us with promises of a new album and to precede that, this new single.
This isn't technically the first release of the new record, what with 'If It Takes You Home' being a download only release towards the latter stages of last year. 'No Emotion', then, is the first release proper (whatever that means in these sandwiches being delivered through your broadband connection times).
'No Emotion' immediately leaps out as being the best thing Idlewild have done for a really, really long time. It's the single that'll bring them back into our hearts where the last album pushed so many of us away. The duality of it is that it alludes back to earlier Idlewild but with even more maturity than they unsuccessfully attempted to put forward in the last record. It's beautifully and meticulously crafted, being a record which screams out with dirty guitar riffs in places and soaring, R.E.M. style backing vocals in others.
This record certainly has a 'current' feel to it to, it feels like 'now' (and I don't mean it sounds like the Klaxons) while still sounding like Idlewild of old, and that's perhaps ultimately the beauty of it. I love this record. I love Roddy's poetic lyrics, I love the dirty riffs and the quirky disco feel to it. I love it all, and if you were disappointed with the last record or go back even further with your Idlewild disillusion, 'No Emotion' should be the one to bring you back to them.
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