REVIEW: Future Islands (with Idles)
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The Ironworks, Inverness
*****
Going into this night, a bill at the Ironworks featuring two of the most exciting bands around right now, there was a chance this could have all gone wrong.
Idles’ savage, sardonic punk rock and Future Islands smooth synth-pop sounds do not, on paper, make easy bedfellows. Indeed, it sounds like they should be sleeping in separate rooms. Perhaps on different continents.
Yet this night – a Tuesday night sellout at the Ironworks – was utterly triumphant as a pairing, if not of musical styles then of ideologies, as both bands let blood on stage in their own particular idioms.
From the jagged squall of opening maelstrom Heel/Heal, Idles quickly make it clear that their preferred method of emotional expression is by tearing down every piece of brickwork within a three-mile radius. There’s a rawness and a bite to the band as they tear through each furious number, the veins on the neck of frontman Joe Talbot (pictured right) popping as he snarls every syllable.
Songs like Danny Nedelko, introduced as a song “about how much I love immigrants” to a roar of approval from the Ironworks, and Mother with its biting and brutal repetition of “the best way to scare a Tory is to read and get rich” wrap their set in the politics of now.
Before tearing into the demonic groove of Love Song – Joe letting sarcasm drip off every syllable of lyrics like “I f***ing love you / Look at this card I bought / it says ‘I love you’” – he proclaims: “We may not be the most apt support – but we are the most grateful. Thank you.”
From the excited chatter of the crowd and the bubbling of energy as set closer Rottweiler crackles around the Ironworks, there’s a good chance that gratitude goes both ways.
For such a brief set – Idles only graced the stage for half an hour – they certainly managed to pack a lot in, and it took Future Islands’ synth pop a few songs to reach a similar level of energy.
They’re such a different prospect though – all smooth hooks, cool synths and songs stuffed with heartache and longing. Although if any synth-led pop band could follow straight on from vicious punk, it’s Future Islands.
The driving basslines of William Cashion and warm synthlines of Gerrit Wilmers provide the orchestration while frontman Samuel T Herring prowls the Ironworks doing what he does best – going off like a bomb.
There’s something wonderfully, magnetically unhinged about the singer, as he stalks the stage, as he beats his chest, slams his fists of the ground and slaps himself in the face, his crooning voice occasionally breaking and dropping into a low, rumbling death-metal roar.
Songs like Ran, A Dream of You and Me and Light House’s tales of yearning are given an added edge, the smooth sheen of the production cut through by the pain and heartache etched in Samuel’s every expression and cracking word.
Charmingly awkward between songs, his earnest stories of visiting Loch Ness for the first time – William put his hand into the water earlier that day “and he hasn’t washed it since – let’s hope it doesn’t go all green and scaly!” Samuel says with a grin – and drinking stories with Idles complement the earnestness and honesty across the music.
“This last song’s called Spirit, and it fills the f****** room baby,” he says before tearing into the main set’s final song to an ecstatic and boisterous crowd. Even one of the security guards seemed to get involved (however unwillingly that might be), as he was lifted up onto the shoulders of somebody in the middle of the crowd.
The crowd cheered and even Samuel cackled. “That’s the best thing I’ve ever seen at a show in my life!” he laughed.
By the time the encore plays out – final song Little Dreamer a gentle and tender comedown to the emotional vicissitudes of the last three hours – more than a few people will be thinking likewise about the two incredible performances they’ve just seen by two incredible bands at the top of their game.
What did you think? Comment below or tweet Kyle: @spp_kwalker
