Idlewild – Interview Music

The news of an eighth Idlewild album, Interview Music, came in line with the release of single Dream Variations in February. Interview Music sees the Edinburgh band work once again with producer Dave Eringa and the result is an album that is part spoken word, part spectral indie-rock and shrugs off the weight of four years' silence with ease.

Interview Music is melodic, adventurous, and full of lyrics which seamlessly drift from carrying the rich weight of human experience and the gossamer-fine tapestry of exploration. Dream Variations sets the tone immediately with a mix of familiarly playful riffs and vocal harmonies, before taking a sudden turn into a cloudbank of drifting melody that coasts unapologetically into strange, miraculous new territory. This is Idlewild, but not as you know them.

Titular track Interview Music coaxes the listener further into this vista of blended dreams, while the smouldering All These Words and forceful Same Things Twice tease toward the band's legacy, with vibrations that briefly and joyously seem to reminisce over the stage thrashing days of yore. I Almost Didn’t Notice reveals a softer side to the album that is warm and melancholic, Idlewild at their poetic best: ‘The luminous emptiness... / It’s perfect for a restless soul, like the classic mix of poetry into rock and roll'.

Alongside the anthems on the album – songs such as Forever New that will have commercial appeal – Interview Music contains a sense of maturity and introspection, infusing the record with a quality that can only come from artists with a defined sense of who they are at their core. In speaking of dreams and the entanglement of our deepest desires with our realities, Idlewild are transcending their indie-punk roots, delivering a universally relatable story that will appeal to staunch fans and new listeners alike.

Listen to: Dream Variations, You Wear It Second Hand, Forever New