HEAVY MUSIC HISTORY: Post Electric Blues – Idlewild
Banging the drum for a band that has culturally fallen out of favour is a lonely thing. Music is best when experienced as a collective, passed between friends, sung together as one. By the time Post Electric Blues dropped in 2009, it felt as if entire galaxies had formed and died since IDLEWILD’s success at the turn of the century. The Remote Part , the band’s best known work, was only kept off the #1 spot by the RED HOT CHILLI PEPPERS and OASIS when it was released in 2002. In a feature ranking the band’s albums for the Guardian, frontman Roddy Woomble said they were unprepared for that spotlight, and played some “terrible gigs in front of very large crowds”. Between The Remote Part and follow-up Warnings/Promises (2005), he said, the spotlight moved on.
It’s hard not to feel melancholic about IDLEWILD’s career in the years since. It’s a diverse catalogue, a chimera of art pop, fuzzed-out rock, and Scottish folk. Most of it is worth anybody’s time, but the word of mouth that propelled them in the early years has gone quiet. The spotlight is cruel. On Spotify, their ‘fans also like’ the much noisier HUNDRED REASONS, while on Apple Music the more abrasive BIFFY CLYRO are listed as a similar artist. IDLEWILD are hard to draw comparisons with, which ought to be a good thing and speaks to their distinct identity, but it in reality leaves them feeling without a home.
Ahead of Post Electric Blues, the band were out of a contract (through no fault of their own; Sanctuary Records had gone into administration). Coming only a couple of years after RADIOHEAD‘s In Rainbows (2007) threw out the rule book on how to get music in front of fans, IDLEWILD decided to self-release the album in June 2009, 15 years ago this month.
It is a great record, which is the only kind IDLEWILD deal in. The band sound more playful than on Make Another World two years earlier prior, and confident to try different styles on for size. Younger Than America’s opening guitar lick is a perfect scene-setter, introducing a rousing piece of indie rock and an album packed with tuneful melodies. The title track moves between distortion and “doo-doo-doodoo”s before climaxing with a booming post-rock crescendo. Take Me Back To The Islands is a world away from the calamitous cacophony of Last Night I Missed All The Fireworks from their debut EP (1998’s Captain), all acoustic and guided by an elegant fiddle.
Woomble and lead guitarist Rod Jones are a fine creative pair, but from the outside, one can be suspicious of a certain tension. The latter seems to have held on to his youthful urges to rock out, especially on stage where he and his instrument are all over the place. There’s a euphoria to his performance, it’s unselfconscious and committed. Woomble is introverted by comparison, sometimes even separate, standing aside to let the band do their thing. With his solo output, he rarely explores rock music, instead focusing on folk, electropop, and experimental spoken-word. When they discussed 2005’s Warnings / Promises with Vice, on which the band switched to a cleaner and quieter vibe, Woomble is immensely proud, while Jones remembered the compromises and how it hadn’t felt genuine.
On Post Electric Blues at least, that tension serves them well. There is little in the way of trying to recapture the glory days, and instead, it all sounds forward-thinking and fun. The creative partnership is generous, with the band keeping their rock roots alive while confidently flexing their folk muscles too. The energy ebbs and flows how it ought to on an album made by maturing musicians who no longer feel they need to make every song louder than the last. In doing so, it expands what kind of band IDLEWILD can be seen to be, capable of unplugged intimacy and headline festival slots.
Woomble and Jones have reflected positively on how the record begins, with Woomble going so far as to say Younger Than America, Readers & Writers, and City Hall are three of the band’s best songs. But they both agree the record dips in quality from then on, blaming it on a self-imposed deadline to release a record and return to touring, a necessary cycle for a working band. While they are overly critical of the album, Woomble admits having a few good songs written and in the bag takes the pressure off during the writing process, and the four or five that follow are never quite as good. That, he says, is the story of Post Electric Blues.
Which sells it short. Take Me Back In Time is one of their most beautiful compositions and a stunning album closer. All Over The Town is an up-tempo blast, wearing their R.E.M. influence proudly. Circles In Stars is like a continuation of Make Another World, but with more developed ideas and a greater canvas to fully come to life.
Talking to the Guardian, Woomble says it is their most overlooked album. It came not long before the band took an extended break, before returning with Everything Ever Written (2015) six years later. That record is mellower still, but one wonders if it would sound as self-assured if it hadn’t been for Post Electric Blues. It is a record packed with ideas, something the band was never short on, but for the first time in a while it sounds like they are broadly on the same page. The creative differences can be artistically fascinating – there are just two years between Warnings/Promises and Make Another World yet they sound like night and day – but the harmony on Post Electric Blues might have been what solidified IDLEWILD’s future as a band. Both 2015’s Everything Ever Written and 2019’s Interview Music have taken them further away from where they started, but they sound as if they are going there together.
The history books will remember The Remote Part and its commercial success, they will be kind to the critical acclaim of 100 Broken Windows, and they might mention the scrappy beginnings of Captain and Hope Is Important too. Post Electric Blues – hell, everything from the mid-2000s onwards – deserves a place in the conversation. The zeitgeist might not have cared, but those who listen will find an immensely likeable collection of songs from a band quite unlike any other. With some successful anniversary tours over the last few years, including a massive career-spanning set at Edinburgh’s Usher Hall, there is life in IDLEWILD still and an appetite for what they are serving. Don’t overlook the quality they’ve already given us.
Post Electric Blues was originally released on June 11 2009 via self-release.
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