Liverpool Sound and Vision rating 8.5/10

In the end it comes to more than just emotion, be it raw, unfiltered and tender, to carry the sense of the powerful into the hearts of all who may hear the rallying cry set down by artists of all persuasions. More than emotion, more than just the ability to give the audience hope, it is has to find a way into the soul and sting, like the comfort afforded by the realisation that the person you might have called friend turns out to be someone to avoid, at least you understand the lesson that has been learned when conversation turns against you.

The sound of Interview Music, the hardy souls that smile though there be the sting of camera pointed at their face, waiting for the reveal, beaming out to the multitude in their swarm like fascination, the discussion already pre-planned without your knowledge, and one that sweeps aside proven convention, this is the stage in which Idlewild return and show that the questions asked receive the right note of thought, as one, as a team, as entertaining and thoughtful as possible.

It is in the sting of the interview that tables can be turned, the audience at home eagerly salivating for the revelation, perhaps the ominous sign that a corner has been turned and sympathies, as well as notices, can be signed in a modern age obsessed with the next thing, even before the time has been signalled on the fruitful that has so much to give them. The music put in place by Idlewild defies that approach, there is nothing to see or hear but bright illumination, of musical insightfulness unsheathed as if tempered by the sound of swords being clashed, and in songs such as There’s A Place For Everything, You Wear It Second Hand, I Almost Didn’t Notice, Mount Analogue, Forever New and Familiar To Ignore, the emotion is joined by the consequence of other’s failings and their hard to please faces falling in a downcast manner as they realise that groups such as Idlewild’s ethic is beyond reproach.

Interview Music is a retort placed before the world but handled with sensitivity and grace, an interview in which the speaker isn’t shouted down, but listened to with fascination; far from an interrogation, it is a rebuttal of the damage caused by those who seek to undermine music as way of healing, who see emotion as cowardly and false, for Idlewild have returned to set the record straight.

Ian D. Hall