In the spirit of how absolutely futile most things are in the year 2020, I have decided to write a piece about the new IDLES record Ultra Mono, a record that literally everyone has pretty much already made up their mind about. Being a member of several music groups on facebook, the band has an especially contentious and polarizing set of opinions in the noise rock group I post in. People can't seem to get enough of either talking shit about the band, thinking they're contrarian by saying they're great or bad (neither is truely correct, every band has it's detractors and champions), or simply arguing rather Idles truely even qualify as a noise rock band. It's a rather banal discussion that has seemlingly if anything only kept the band at the top of the discussion list in threads on the group, for better of for worse. I personally am a big fan of the band myself, and Joy As An Act Of Resistance was definitely near the top of my list for 2018 records. It was and still is in my opinion a record with a very fresh take on noise rock/rock music in general, heavy and catchy, a bit odd but still strangely very accessible, an endearing tenderness despite being a mostly heavy record with pretty heavy political themes. As such, my expectations along with many others were very high for Ultra Mono to build upon or even surpass Joy As An Act...does it? I'd say yes and no.
Ultra Mono is certainly a streamlined version of the previous Idles records, much more straightforward and even more focused on the idea of pop songs in a heavy music format than those records were. Some of it works brilliantly, some of it not so much. The album comes crushing out the gate with "War" which stands as most likely my favorite song on the record. Quiet-loud trade off sections are used incredibly effectively in this song and backing vocals are provided by none other than legendary Jesus Lizard frontman David Yow, who guests on several of the other songs on the record as well. It's an incredible start to a record that despite having the exact same 42 minute length as the previous records feels strangely more brief and streamlined than the last LP's, and honestly a bit more pedestrian as well. This ended up being a bit disappointing to me personally, as I was hoping for a bit more risk taking sound wise on the band's end, especially with the band saying the album was meant to be structured like a hip hop record in interviews leading up to release, as well as them bringing incredible producer Kenny Beats onboard to work on the album, I guess I just expected something a bit different and not a more straightforward verison of the last two records. Regardless, highlights such as the aformentioned opening track, Model Village, Carcinogenic, and The Lover certainly make this an album worth listening to, serving as some of the band's best material to date. It's just a bummer that the album feels like less as a whole than those individual tracks would suggest.
So, as far as the question of if Idles are noise rock savants or total posers goes, I'd say the answer lies somewhere in the middle. The band certainly has the base elements of noise rock embedded in their sound and you can't really land a bigger co-sign in the genre than David Yow, but I'd be surprised if a specific genere even mattered much to the band or the sound that they're pushing forward than the message they want to deliver. Ultra Mono is cerainly not a bad record by any means, it's just a bit disappointing in that the band seems to have fallen into a repetition of their sound instead of moving forward sonically, something I personally was looking forward to quite a bit with this new record and the people involved with it. There's no doubt that fans of the bands first two records will find plenty to love here, and I'd also say that this album certainly won't be changing the mind of any of their detractors, but those looking for something new from Idles on Ultra Mono might walk away disappointed. Regardless of that, the band's presence is certainly welcome in the extremely docile state of modern rock and roll bands that is 2020.
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