IDLES

Tangk (Partisan)

Idles’ fanbase is famously cultish – fortunately for the Bristolians, because fifth LP Tangk is likely to test that devotion to the limit. Lame “rager” Hall & Oates harks back to the Idles of old, but is a conspicuous outlier amid the likes of A Gospel, IDEA 01 and Monolith, which sound like the work of a different band altogether – one unsuccessfully trying to channel an obsession with Young Fathers.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with a desire to try something new, of course, but Dancer is not so much a dog’s dinner as outright dogshit – less sexy groove and more being hit on by a lascivious, clammy, pot-bellied middle manager. Joe Talbot shows he can croon as well as bark, at least, but still can’t resist occasionally beating us around the head with blunt lyrical messages.

Tangk’s one saving grace is, appropriately enough, Grace, which glides along like Sound Of Silver-era LCD Soundsystem. But when Talbot claims, on Gift Horse, “We don’t care what the people say,” it feels as though he’s already sensibly steeling himself for the backlash.

words BEN WOOLHEAD