Reviews of Idles’ Ultra Mono hit like déjà vu. Just as in 2018—when the band released their sophomore album, Joy as an Act of Resistance— the words “important” and “political” are being tossed around. But who exactly are Idles important to? Like many “political” acts post-Blair, the band makes gutless appeasements to neoliberal coke-snorters and suburbanites. In fact, the only political facet of Idles’ act is their absolutism. They reject engagement with their ideological opponents, instead finding strength in their own belligerence. This single-mindedness is both their greatest source of public appeal, and their Achilles heel. If you only speak to one side of a debate, you may as well be screaming into your pillow. And every day, you will struggle more to differentiate principles from populism.
The limitations of Idles’ worldview have never manifested as clearly as in “Model Village”, one of Ultra Mono’s four pre-release singles. The track paints the U.K. as a spattering of enlightened metropolitan strongholds poking from a smog of bigoted backwaters. Any non-university town holds swathes of Range Rovers, hunting caps and Barbour jackets; rabbits slung over hairy shoulders, thick knuckles curled around pints of Old Rosie. City-dwellers can relax! Our country’s ugliest –isms, its excesses and acts of exploitation, are the sole remit of cartoonish countryside caricatures. Anyone else is modern and clever enough to dodge responsibility.
Such oversimplification works against Idles’ positivity. Peace, love and unity are on offer—but only for a specific type of person with a specific value structure. The message is further dulled by frontman Joe Talbot’s shtick. He is figure of comical hyper-masculinity, who screams through clenched teeth about putting homophobes in coffins and—in the case of Idles’ live shows—stabbing Tories. It seems that 43.6% of U.K. voters are exempt from Idles’ brand of love, better served by being murdered like battery hens.
Revelling in bitter identity politics like this invites conflict, not unity. The band stretches in two opposing directions, employing the language of violence to invoke peace. The difference between Tories and modern Labour is so minimal that Idles’ hardline take on things is bizarre. This “my-way-or-the-highway” attitude is one of many ways Talbot and co. resemble televangelists. They are blusterous, froth-mouthed know-it-alls whose theatrics disguise the hollowness of their views. You can’t help but suspect, too—like those televangelists—when Idles say “unity” they mean “uniformity”. People should come together…as long as it’s under this ministry. The other churches can fuck themselves! They’re all going to hell!
What’s worse is that band don’t even embody the ideology they describe. They champion immigration, but not immigrant voices in the arts. Why let them have a share? Instead, just shout platitudes about hard-working Poles and keep all that industry money for yourself. Talbot’s lyrics are basically a kitchen-sink reimagining of the noble savage. In Idles lyrics, immigrants’ presence in the U.K. is justified by their hard work and the strength of their characters—not that most basic of things, their humanity. So are we unconditionally welcoming immigrants, because we love them, or is it a meritocracy? Of course, we welcome the brave and beautiful ones, but ugly cowards apparently don’t deserve a mention. We’re one album away from Idles dropping the pretence entirely, and setting a minimum income threshold.
When questioned on the lack of female supports on their tour, Idles cited a drought of female acts, and suggested “Government legislation” to ensure bookings better represented the scope and variety of working U.K. artists. But anyone paying even the slightest bit of attention knows this is horseshit. The industry is chock-full of amazing women who can’t get bookings. Idles’ deflection of responsibility, and their disinterest in diversity within the arts, is disgusting in the face of their big talk. Living by your credos can be costly and inconvenient, so might as well abandon them ASAP—as long as it’s only those beautiful immigrants and women getting shafted.
The disconnect between words and actions gives listeners a free ride, too. Listen to Ultra Mono and you can keep shopping at Amazon, keep paying £6 for a can of Red Stripe at Hammersmith gigs, keep purchasing tech that uses conflict resources in its manufacture. When all the immigrant businesses have to shut because you buy your fruit in Waitrose, when the entire community have been forced out of their homes, when the suicide nets go up in third-world sweatshops, we’ll blame the establishment and the racists in some village 200 miles away.
Elsewhere, the band are even more vapid. Ultra Mono’s “Ne Touche Pas Moi” (yes, really) is a stirring track about sexual respect with a powerful pre-chorus in which Talbot screams “consent, consent, consent”. On the face of it, this feels like some sort of a statement—but only in imagining counterarguments can we see how little the track actually has to say. “As a dedicated pro-rape activist, I must contest Idles’ extreme stance that rape isn’t good”. These tepid non-arguments are nothing but a bid for mass appeal. You are not the second coming of punk if you have nothing to say.
In a 2017 debate between pop-philosophers Slavoj Zizek and Jordan Peterson, Zizek described the hyper-moralisation of identity politics as a “silent admission of defeat”. Above Joe Talbot’s big voice, Idles’ amplified guitars and thundering drums, hangs a silence which is impossible to ignore. Punk is an ideology which became neutered and obsolete in the 1980s, diminishing as its power to shock faded. Its radicalism was assimilated into mass culture, its ideas repurposed and mass-marketed. Idles are here for the dregs—a radio-friendly tribute act selling their dead genre to the same dickheads it used to hate.
Words: Andrew O’Keefe