Tangk, Idles

Tangk is an onomatopoeic neologism for the fricative, spitting guitar sound that Bristol five-piece Idles have come to master, and the name of their fifth album. Their previous efforts have married lacerating, postpunk licks with foaming lyricism. This one, however, immediately signifies a shift, breezing in calmly with IDEA 01 (lush piano arpeggios and actual singing from frontman Joe Talbot). Many of the lyrics on this record are said to be improvised, and sometimes that is glaringly obvious. “Freundenfreunde” is a term seldom heard, least of all in songs, and perhaps that’s for the best, given how clunkily it lands, in a couplet with “Joy-on-joy”. Tangk is framed as an expression of love: “Love is the fing” Talbot sings on Grace. If that is true, the failing of this record is that love is a many-splendoured fing, one that can’t convincingly be expressed through rage alone. Idles struggle to articulate passion using plosives. Theirs is the kind of dizzying, aggressive admission of romance that comes after the three-pint challenge. Which isn’t to say that those feelings aren’t valid; just that Idles are still too Tangk’d up to be tied down.