My copy of 100 Broken Windows (2000) cost me thirty-two dollars. I had read all about these fiery Scottish students brilliantly melding Gertrude Stein to a far more jagged interpretation of R.E.M.’s Murmur (1983) and decided I couldn’t wait until Windows’ proper U.S. release (and records just didn’t leak onto the interweb in 1999). But it was worth it; I forced myself to listen to 100 Broken Windows yesterday just to be certain I didn’t completely imagine, or overstate, its excellence, and was pleased to find myself thrashing around the bedroom again like the bushy-tailed college brat I was eight years ago.

Sadly (if unsurprisingly), Idlewild’s new record is one of those albums that requires the disconcerted fan to revisit a band’s back catalogue just to make sure you weren’t on crack when you called 100 Broken Windows your favorite album of 1999, and dragged your ex-girlfriend to that Placebo show just because Idlewild was the opening band. While Clayton Purdom’s review of 2005’s Warnings/Promises did a fine job of detailing Idlewild’s painful descent into suckitude that began with 2002’s The Remote Part, not even he could have predicted Make Another World, an album that isn’t so much bad as downright irresponsible. [Or stomach-churningly reprehensible, whatever. -- Ed.]

So what the fuck happened? The pissed off juggernaut that was Idlewild circa ’99 would have probably mercifully broken up in advance had you told them that they’d be reduced to playing shitty disco-punk in 2007, but that’s exactly what first single “No Emotion” is. Really. Roddy Woomble and the other guys are rocking the disco hi-hat like it’s the spring of 2003. And it’s not even catchy like the first Franz Ferdinand record, but extremely annoying, with a pretentious video and “whoa-oh-oh-oh” chorus hook designed to induce vomiting.

While “No Emotion” is unquestionably Make Another World’s (even the album title is ass) worst track, its not like the mega-compressed, homogenous riffing of its other eleven offer any significant improvements. Clay’s review concluded by questioning when Idlewild decided to turn into Hoobastank, but “No Emotion” suggests something far worse -- a band whose life ambition is to score a slot opening for Bloc Party. Who’d have ever thought “These Wooden Ideas” would be ironic?

permanent link ::