Genre : Punk, post-punk, punk-rock
Release date : September 25th, 2020
Label : Partisan Records
FFO : Fontaines D.C., The Murder Capital, Squid, Slaves
Now this is the one where I kind of go against the vox populi, which doesn't happen all that often on here since I tend to only discuss releases I thoroughly enjoyed (for the most part).
I'm just gonna go ahead and say it : I don't entirely get the massive hype and overwhelmingly positive response to this record.
It's definitely not a bad album but it's also definitely not as amazing as most people make it out to be in my opinion.
Although there's some interesting stuff going on with the guitar effects ("War", "Model Village"), cool experimentation with electronics due to the band's collaboration with notorious beatmaker and producer Kenny Beats ( particularly on the track "Grounds"), the drumming is extremely tight and Joe Talbot's recognisable vocal delivery is charismatic and energetic as ever; unfortunately the flaws I find to this album throw too much shade to it's positive aspects and prevent me from enjoying it as full heartedly as most fans of the band seem to be.
I honestly had to check the tracklist now and then while I was listening to the album just to make sure some of the tracks hadn't repeated since a lot of the riffs sound quite similar to one another ("Mr. Motivator" & "Ne Touche Pas Moi" for instance).
The other main negative thing I quickly noticed about the album and which probably upsets me the most, is the fact that I felt like the lyricism had been dumbed down a lot on most tracks compared to their two previous albums where the writing was a lot more sharper and wittier with it's social and political satire.
Here on "Ultra Mono" the writing on most songs feels just as subtle as what's going on in the album cover art and perhaps that is precisely the band's intention and I understand the appeal of it but I personally feel like IDLES' biggest strength and what makes them interesting in the first place is the perfect balance between unbridled anger and clever, humourous socio-political satire which they had perfectly executed on 2017's "Brutalism".
Now despite this, there are some tracks that I strongly enjoy and the band's overall energy is infectious even during what I consider to be the lowest points of the album (ok except maybe Joe's excessive barking of onomatopeias, that got a bit old and just flat out annoying at some points), so for those reasons I'll still count it in my favourite albums of September but I know that IDLES are capable of making music that is more thought-provoking and that doesn't get old within the span of a same album, which is why I can't help but feel disappointed and slightly unimpressed by "Ultra Mono".
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