Idlewild: Make a New World

It's all fun and games at the start really. You meet someone who has similar taste in music to you, and because of this mutual interest you start hanging out with each other all the time.

You go to concerts together, listen to CDs together. Talk about the books you're reading, what inspires you, your hopes and dreams for the future.

And then suddenly someone makes the suggestion that you should get a band started. It's an idea that is so obvious in its brilliance that you kick yourself for not thinking of it earlier.

Giddy with excitement you start mentally auditioning everyone you know for places in this new venture. Lo and behold, swiftly you're a member of a band. "This is the best thing ever, I get to create music I love with my best friends."

Cut to an indeterminable number of years later and the hobby you love has become your job, simply a way to pay the bills that's more appealing than a nine 'til five. Your collaborators, now just people you work with. You all have separate lives now, you've all pursued different hobbies. It's hard to put your finger on when this happened, but it did. You keep telling yourself that you're still creating something special.

Lately, Idlewild's albums have had a sense of layering about them. Like one person writes a song and then one by one, the other members go into the studio to record their own parts. It's easy to tell that these guys are no longer as close friends as they used to be. Almost all of the song seem to have an inability to gel together and generally carry a feeling of haphazardness backed by a "will this do?" attitude. But this is not the worst thing about Idlewild's new album, oh no. Not by a long shot.

Allan Stewart. The fifth member to join the band not too long ago is, by far, the worst thing about this album. Coming off as a deranged guitar hero wannabe he takes every opportunity available to decimate each song with the most awful, tuneless, and repetitive guitar solos known to man. Perhaps best exemplified on the track "Make Another World". One wonders if he was even listening to the song as he was recording his parts. When he keeps it reined in, like on the track "You and I are Both Away" the band showcase a pleasant melodic charm that is a pleasure to listen to. An NME writer once famously described Idlewild as sounding like "A flight of stairs falling down a flight of stairs." Sad to say that nowadays they sound like a Guns and Roses guitarist being pushed down an elevator shaft whilst a semi-sedated punk band play somewhere in the building.