Sometimes I feel like everyone I know has seen IDLES live except me. They’ve certainly been covered in this blog before – twice at Terminal 5 and once at King’s Theatre. I’ve had real FOMO about it, since they are notoriously amazing live. And on September 27th, I finally got to catch them at Forest Hills Stadium, a venue I’ve also never been to, and had my mind thoroughly blown.
Everything you’ve heard about IDLES live is true, and more. The entire band – singer Joe Talbot, guitarists Mark Bowen and Lee Kiernan, bassist Adam Devonshire and drummer Jon Beavis – is absolutely non-stop from the moment they hit the stage right up until the (10pm curfew sharp at Forest Hills) end. Each song explodes into being and never falters in intensity for a single second. It’s not just the pounding rhythms or the piercing guitars or Talbot’s fervent vocals, either: the physical energy of the band never wavers either, although they each go about it in their own way. Devonshire sways nonstop to his bouncing basslines, Talbot stalks the stage, and Kiernan leaves it entirely, following the notes of his guitar out onto the shoulders of the crowd.
The set list stretched across all five of their full length releases, mining from this year’s TANGK and 2023’s Crawler and their 2018 breakthrough album Joy as An Act of Resistance. With their synthesis of relentless sound and creative songwriting, IDLES don’t quite fit into a box, taking post-punk turns here and punk rock turns there, turning in both anthems like “I’m Scum” and more experimental songs like “POP POP POP.” Highlights of the set for me were “Colossus,” “Divide and Conquer,” and “The Beachland Ballroom” (which always makes me feel a lot of things, as the inspiration for the song is one of my hometown venues.)
Well known for their political and confrontational lyrics, IDLES opinions on world affairs were on full display throughout the night. More than once, the crowd cheered and joined in with “Viva Palestina” and at one point Bowen led them in chanting “Cease Fire Now,” in his thick Belfast brogue. (As a Northern Irishman, he’s surely no stranger to Irish-Palestinian solidarity.) The American audience was also happy to get in on a full-throated chant of “FUCK THE KING!” (the “new British anthem”) which the band was unafraid to do earlier this year live on the BBC at Glastonbury. The chant was repeated later by the unlikeliest of heroes, a concertgoer named Ash who met the band earlier in the night and was invited onstage to perform drums on “Samaritans.” In what might have been one of the most exciting nights of his life, he fucking nailed it.
IDLES are very appreciative of their audience, and are a grateful band in general. Throughout the set they thanked their managers, label, touring staff, even venue security. “Danny Ndelko” was dedicated to all the immigrants out there, “Dancer” was dedicated to LCD Soundsystem (James Murphy and Nancy Whang appear on the album track) and “Gratitude” was dedicated to the Walkmen, the legendary band who served as openers for the night.
The Walkmen are a band that means a lot to Talbot (who was spotted in attendance at their Webster Hall shows earlier this year). He said it was truly an honor to share the stage with them, as he was given a copy of their 2004 album Bows + Arrows when he was in a dark place. Talbot spoke on how music can change lives, and how music has changed his own life. Talbot has been open about his personal struggles, and also his triumphs, and it was very clear how much playing such a gig with a band he admired meant to him, and it clearly resonated with many in the audience.
And damn, what an audience! The response to IDLES performance was one of the most rapturous I’ve seen in a while. From holding up Kiernan on his many trips crowd surfing, to circle pits, to singing along with every damn word, the audience was right there with the band from beginning to end. It was impossible to not be swept away by the energy in that Queens auditorium, on a lovely night where the rain that had threatened earlier held off, and it was finally clear to me what my friends had told me before: IDLES are quite simply one of the best live acts of our time. They finished the night by offering two more songs, the first of which was a hilarious acapella rendition of “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” before raging through “Rottweiler,” and ending with exactly 55 seconds to spare on the curfew clock. Even after releasing five albums in seven years and relentless touring, this band shows no signs of slowing down.
Setlist: IDEA 01, Colossus, Gift Horse, Mr. Motivator, Mother, Car Crash, I’m Scum, Jungle, 1049 Gotho, The Wheel, When the Lights Come On, Divide and Conquer, War, Wizz, Gratitude, Benzocaine, POP POP POP, Samaritans, Crawl!, The Beachland Ballroom, Never Fight a Man With a Perm, Dancer, Danny Nedelko, All I Want for Christmas Is You, Rottweiler
Scroll down for pics of the show (photos by Kate Hoos)
With their newest release Art History, New England band Perennial offer up an album that would be at home on a dance floor or a mosh pit. Over twelve tracks, few of which top two minutes, the band —Chelsey Hahn (electric organ & vocals), Chad Jewett (electric guitar & vocals) and Wil Mulhern (drums) wiggle and thrash their way through a mash up of genres. Perennial wear their influences on their sleeves—influences that include Q and Not U, Black Eyes and Blood Brothers, according to the band who spoke with FTA last year in a Q and A, when Jewett told us:
“Perennial came from a really sincere desire to form the kind of band we all wished existed. There were all these artists and sounds and aesthetics that we really adored, and we formed Perennial as sort of an art project to put all of that stuff together: 60s soul and 90s Dischord stuff and free jazz and electronic music, and so on.”
Art History doesn’t pull punches and tears right into it on the title track, the dual back and forth yell of Hahn and Jewett immediately grabbing our attention. At no point after this does the album let up. Perennial mix the loud guitars and shouting vocals with grooviness—this might be a punk record, but it’s also a dance record. The syncopated drums throw out rhythms and fills that induce a need to move, and the understated synths provide electro flourishes.
Perennial have a “sound” but they do try new things within that, including arty instrumentals like “A Is For Abstract” and “B Is For Brutalism,” where they play into the album title. (On their Bandcamp, the group bills themselves as “modernist punk.”) They do go quiet-loud at times, so it isn’t full “everything at 11 all the time,” even when the song itself is fast and catchy (“Uptight”). Highlights for me on the record were “Art History,” “Tambourine On Snare,” “How The Ivy Crawls” and “Mouthful of Bees,” on which they remind me a bit of We Versus The Shark. (Editors note: “Action Painting” is my favorite over here at FTA headquarters)
If you are familiar with Perennial’s earlier work, like 2022’s In The Midnight Hour, you’ll love this album as well. They haven’t reinvented themselves, but they don’t need to. Art History is a lively and raucous record by a very fun band, one that also very much shines in live performances, so if you have a chance to catch one of their shows and the matching outfits (as we did last year) then definitely do so.
To All Trains starts with one guitar plucking out a warbling riff, a riff that will cycle back across the song. But it is quickly joined by the bass and drums, a formula that held Shellac throughout their career. Over thirty-odd years, guitarist and singer Steve Albini, bassist and singer Bob Weston and drummer Todd Trainer took the classic three-piece rock lineup and delivered punishing, jagged music breaking down structure, rhythm, and melody itself. And yet for all this deconstruction, Shellac nonetheless drove straight to the core of rock and roll.
This review is later than others; I wanted to listen to the album on its own terms, not in the immediate wake of the death of Albini—who passed away only ten days before the album’s release on May 17th—and was a man whose work in music I’ve always admired. And To All Trains deserves to be considered as an album made by three people, not just the most famous member, and held up against the impressive body of work that Shellac leaves behind. As an album—their first since 2014’s Dude Incredible—I think it does this admirably, just as vital and compelling as anything they’ve put out before. In a way Shellac built their songs as if they were on a construction site rather than in a carefully mic-ed up studio: the buzzsaw guitars, the chugging bass, the jackhammer drums. And if it’s true the composition can lend a cold quality to the songs, it’s equally true that the recording and their live-as-possible sound brings out the organic side.
As expected from the group, this record is a versatile mix of noise, math, rock and experimentation. Shellac have been known to throw a long song in the mix, but To All Trains only has two songs that top four minutes, and just barely at that. It’s all they need to make an impression. Lead track “Wsod” has pierced your eardrum and exited the other side before you even know it, but you remember it was there as “Girl from Outside” kicks into a dirge-like march.
The record really gets going on “Chick New Wave,” a mosh-worthy rocker filled with headbanging moments and throbbing drum fills. If Shellac were a singles band (they seem to have left that in the 90’s) this one would be the likely selection.
Other highlights include the mathy “Tattoos;” the punchy “Scrappers,” which pairs a straight up old-school rock riff with an aggressive rhythm section; and the bassy “How I Wrote How I Wrote Elastic Man (Cock & Bull)” which in an alternative universe could be considered almost bouncy.
It’s often the bass in the driver’s seat, with Weston pummeling the songs through to a finish while the guitar hooks around and provides textures and flourishes. Trainer is adept at rolling toms and gunshot snare, and holds everything together in a box lest it all burst apart. The production is, as expected, fucking flawless, recorded and produced by Albini and mastered by himself and Weston with all the skill and perfect mic placement one would expect of them.
A joking sort of dread permeates the vocals, which is characteristic of the band. I’ll admit the lyrics are what I pay attention to least on Shellac records; I’m always hypnotized by the instrumentation. They aren’t a weak spot or an afterthought, they just don’t grab me the same way, and To All Trains is no different in this respect. However, it’s impossible to ignore the words on the noisy drudge-rocker “Wednesday,” as the climax is spoken over the end without music, a heavy tale of suicide. On the the polar opposite end of things, “Scabby the Rat” had me rolling on the floor with lines like
Scabby the Rat
Ooh, he’s inflatable
Scabby the Rat
That’s right, I said inflatable
Scabby the Rat
Makes the whole room pregnant
Scabby the Rat
Pow! you’re pregnant
Albini also takes the time here to shout out the late Chicago musician Rob Warmowski (The Defoliants, Buzzmuscle) who ran a pro-labor Twitter account named after the titular inflatable rat (who, if you didn’t know, often pops up at union strikes).
The ten-track album closes out with “I Don’t Fear Hell,” a menacing, sneering knockout of a final track, with juddering stop-starts so you aren’t quite sure when it will be over. Albini’s final words on To All Trains are:
Something something something when this is over
I’ll leap in my grave like the arms of a lover
If there’s a heaven, I hope they’re having fun
Cause if there’s a hell, I’m gonna know everyone
It’s low-hanging fruit to ascribe this parting shot any more significance than a solid album closer; Albini’s death was sudden and unexpected. He reported suffering a cardiac incident in his 20’s, so it’s possible he had some thoughts of mortality rattling around in his brain. (The band even joked about it in interviews.) But he was also a famously snarky bastard, and the vibe of “I Don’t Fear Hell” is perfectly in place with the rest of the album.
Overall, To All Trains is a seamless document, a piece of art from three musicians who know music, who work with it and feel it in their very bones, yet never suffer the temptation to over complicate things. If you like Shellac, you will love this record; if you’ve never heard them before and are curious after Albini’s passing, this isn’t a bad place to start.
To All Trains is out now on Touch and Go Records; buy it or stream it on Bandcamp and Spotify. Read The Wire‘s wide ranging interview/oral history with Shellac published shortly after Albini’s death here.
On their newest LP Dark Ice Balloons, New York scene stalwarts Nihiloceros bring us both the vibrant rock music we know and love and a new direction. The band (on this album featuring Mike Borchardt on guitar and vocals, Alex Hoffman on bass and vocals, and German Sent on drums) acknowledges that Dark Ice Balloons is a bleaker record, with musings on life and death and the liminal spaces in between, but the music raises everything up so as to not be a depressing affair.
Nihiloceros bill themselves as “trash pop,” and are certainly on the punk side of pop, but not the pop side of punk, if you know what I mean. Dark Ice Balloons punches right in with “Penguin Wings,” showing how the band stands above the punk pack with interesting chord choices and progressions, and sharp harmonies on the choruses to add dynamic range.
The single “Skipper” is another great example of dynamic choices, with bopping verses and a changeup of vocals and timing of the beat on the chorus, like crashing waves moving into a rolling sea. According to the group, “the first single off our forthcoming EP questions, “if our soul screams out alone at sea, will it make a sound that anyone will hear?…We are destined to die, but does the soul live on?”
Nowhere on the eight songs of the LP does the band get lazy. Borchardt’s guitar work is cutting, Hoffman is a creative bass player, and Sent propels everything into the stratosphere, while the contrast between Borchardt and Hoffman’s vocals—used to especially great effect on “Skipper” and “Purgatory (Summer Swim)”—adds another layer. Musically, the album moves from unrelenting (“Halo”), poppier (“Krong”), and intense (“Purgatory (Summer Swim)”) while touching on the band’s ideas of the afterlife (and also a space explorer in the Midwest, on the single “Martian Wisconsin”).
“Counting Sheep” was a favorite of mine, a chameleon of a track that constantly changed direction, as was the soaring “Halo.” The stellar ending track “Purgatory (Summer Swim)” is the best song on the record, with intriguing musical flourishes and an earworm of a call and response chorus—seriously, does “I’m gonna kill you when you’re gone” have the right to be so catchy? The album was mixed by Jeff Berner at Studio G in Brooklyn, and he doesn’t overdo the production, keeping everything clean without losing any of the rawness.
Package Pt. 2, the new album from Brooklyn art punks Gustaf, is a successful sophomore outing and a definitive statement from a band once seen as promising up and comers that they are here to stay.
Gustaf is made up of Lydia Gammill on vocals, Tine Hill on bass, Vram Kherlopian on guitars and synths, Melissa Lucciola on drums and Tarra Thiessen on percussion and “Cafe Bustelo Can.” This is a simplistic breakdown of the lineup; Gammill also plays flute, bass and keyboards and all members contribute backing vocals, most prominently Thiessen with her pointedly dispatched pitch shifter. Past and current projects of the lineup include Sharkmuffin (Theissen) and Tea Eater (Theissen and Kherlopian) and Francie Moon (Lucciola). Their first record Audio Drag For Ego Slobs was a post-pandemic burst of post-punk, and at times dance-friendly outing that drew praise from critics. Beck is a fan (he remixed “Design” from their debut 7 inch release) and the band has spent the last few years opening for acts like IDLES and Wet Leg, further bolstering their resume.
On Package Pt. 2 the band uses musical edges and angles like a construction crew, building layed tunes out of deceptively simple architecture. For me, the record invokes a concrete and faded neon tour of our city, à la Sonic Youth at their most New York. Gustaf will also inevitably draw comparisons to post-punk greats like Talking Heads. It starts off strong with “Statue,” as Gammill seems to outline her own compelling stage presence (“I project my way to the center of the stage”) before something seems amiss:
If we stand still at the center of the stage
Will I see what they’re grabbing?
And oh!
The Statues!
They’re alarming!
Oh The Statues linger on!
This underlying uneasiness is a common thread on the album, and it’s not always lyrical. The jerkiness of the music, the slinkiness of the basslines, all intertwine and judder about to form a strange, jittery soundtrack. That edge of menace is maintained on the second track “Close.” Never has single note and octave work been so goddamn catchy:
Gustaf are adept at using what isn’t there as much as what is, and nowhere is their command of the pause more evident than the first single “Starting and Staring.” The music video turns the expected laid-back atmosphere of a house show into an intense outing, as Gammil commands the viewer to “stay on my eyes” and the band slowly notices an otherworldly presence among the lackadaisical audience.
“Here Hair” finds the band in a softer moment (“still I love you, I wake to your hair… you’re keeping me safe and warm”) which is paired with the punky coda “Hard Hair” for the video, in which Gustaf lose none of their weirdness despite slowing things down for a moment.
The singles from Package Pt. 2 are well-chosen. Other standout tracks include “I Won,” a tale of frustration, anger and ‘winning’ arguments, and the closer “End Of The Year.” The groups Bandcamp page for the album includes lyrics (highly appreciated by reviewers, to be sure) yet many songs for me remain at a distance, solid meanings hard to tease out, although the general vibe can be deduced. Gammill tackles longing with “End Of The Year,” reminiscing “out there you stay bare / somewhere out there I still feel you here / oh to enjoy being yours again / to wonder how I let you in / could the memory come back to me?“
Package Pt. 2 was produced, mixed and engineered by Erin Tonkon, and recorded at Studio G Brooklyn, Circular Ruin and The Honey Jar. Tonkon has done a stellar job here, with every instrument coming through on its own plane of existence and Gammill’s voice never overshadowed, while maintaining total cohesion between every part.
