Album review: IDLEWAR – Impulse

September 6th, 2016 by jason

Idlewar/PHD [Release date 30.09.16]

I’ve lived in Orange County, Southern California – there’s two sides to it. You have the “as-seen-on-TV”, plastic surgery, perfect world populated by people who are shallower than most of the baths you’ve ever had. Then you have the Inland Empire – an endless vista of track housing, strip malls and strip joints, food outlets as fast as a speed-induced picnic, neon lighting with half the bulbs not working…..they’re as different as Harrogate and Barnsley. I’m guessing this is where Idlewar call home.

Imagine a wedding where the two love birds come from rival biker gangs who have forged an uneasy truce for the day – Idlewar’s debut album, Impulse, is the soundtrack to that wedding.

Littered with heavy stoner grooves as “garagey” as an oily rag and yet graced by the very powerful, clean vocals of bassist/singer, James Blake, invoking Chris Cornell fronting Clutch, or even Ritchie Kotzen – refreshing to hear a real voice rather than a growl in this genre.

In truth, this is an album of two halves – whilst the whole album could best be described as more “early evening dusk” rather than “midnight dark”, there is a murky flavor to all these songs but the first four tracks stand out. “Stone In My Heel” sets the pace, “Soul” is a crashing foot-stomper and “Criminal” is Rhino Bucket meeting Powerage-era AC/DC in a sleazy motel for cheap, meaningless sex – with the kind of heavy riffage that Rich Robinson brought to the Crowes.

“All That I Got” is hypnotic and gloomy – with a melody as sticky as a pub carpet after student night. Thereafter, it’s gets a bit samey and by the time you get to the last track, “On Your Knees”, you are indeed prone and blindfolded, hoping those bikers are going to play you the first four tracks again – rather than initiate you.

This album will have fringe appeal but the niche is there with echoes of Soundgarden and some interesting and alternative time signatures thrown in for good measure or complicating things, depending on your point of view. Definitely worth a spin for the first four tracks.” ***

Review by Mark “Mad Dog” Shaw

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