In Our Hands

Being angry is too easy, say idles Mark Bowen and Lee Kiernan, whose new album, Joy as an act of resistance, reveals a new way to protest

Now that everybody in the world is angry, it would be an ironic twist indeed if joy proved itself the more subversive and effective emotion to recruit in service to furious music. At least, that’s how Bristol-based post-punk quintet Idles see it. After their strident 2017 debut, Brutalism, Idles have earned a reputation for trafficking in combustible angst, but they share a belief that reshaping anger via the weaponising of joy might just help us exorcise the demons that are pulling society apart. The title of their sophomore album, , articulates this mood succinctly. Idles are looking past the anger and invite you to do likewise. A colourful spectrum of candy apple reds and surf greens at Fender’s London HQ offers a playfully incongruous backdrop for guitarists Lee Kiernan and Mark Bowen to discuss a propulsive sound rooted in grey and brutal real-world struggles. These Joy As An Act Of Resistance struggles, brought to life through vocalist Joe Talbot’s unsparing lyrics, tell of a country on its knees, reeling amid a supernova of resentment. So where does the joy fit in?

“People always get us confused when we use the word ‘anger’,” says Bowen. “There is definitely an element to what we do that is anger, but it’s more about violence. Our language, and our mode of expressing any kind of emotions with each other, or sentiments that we might have, our language lies in violence and anything that we are deft in expressing is through some sort of violence. That’s where we feel the most catharsis from. I think that the violent element is still in there but, from the outset, we noticed that we were writing a more positive thing because we were feeling more positive, and we wanted to use more positive chord structures, major chord sequences, just to convey the same kind of violence but in a happy, joyous mode.”

NIHILISM BE DAMNED