After wiping their socials and teasing the phrase “In spite of it all, life is beautiful” on billboards, English outfit IDLES have made it official and announced a new album. CRAWLER, coming Nov. 12 on Partisan Records, is their fourth studio LP, following their acclaimed, U.K. album chart-topping 2020 effort Ultra Mono. The 14-track, Kenny Beats-co-produced (!!) album’s details are out now alongside the video for lead single “The Beachland Ballroom,” a tribute to Cleveland, Ohio’s historic music venue of the same name, as well as “an allegory of feeling lost and getting through it,” as frontman Joe Talbot explains.
“The Beachland Ballroom” is a statement-making first preview of IDLES’ new material, introducing a heavy dose of soul into their pummeling, sneering sound—an unlikely swerve the band pulls off, in both surprising and satisfying fashion. Talbot blends his usual harsh barks with plaintive crooning (blending both on lines like “Made me sway, made me sway, made me sway!) over an understated backbeat, organ hum and electric guitars that spend most of the song tightly coiled, only occasionally exploding outward. Meanwhile, Talbot’s dynamic vocal performance opens a window into the band’s rapid rise to fame: “Soon as the rush went away / I did not look for a way / Damage, damage, damage,” he cries. The accompanying, one-shot music video is equally unflinching, as an extreme-closeup Talbot professes his pain directly into the camera.
“It’s the most important song on the album, really,” says Talbot of “The Beachland Ballroom.” “There’s so many bands that go through the small rooms and dream of making it into the big rooms. Being able to write a soul tune like this made me go, fuck—we’re at a place where we’re actually allowed to go to these big rooms and be creative and not just go through the motions and really appreciate what we’ve got. The song is sort of an allegory of feeling lost and getting through it. It’s one that I really love singing.”
IDLES guitarist Mark Bowen adds, “I didn’t know Joe could sing like that. He’s been trying to write ‘Be My Baby’ since the very beginning, but he didn’t want to be the punk guy wearing the Motown clothes. He wanted it to feel natural, and this song is.”
IDLES recorded CRAWLER at Bath’s Real World Studios during the pandemic, with Bowen and in-demand hip-hop producer Kenny Beats (Vince Staples, Slowthai, Freddie Gibbs) sharing co-production duties—an in-character move from a band known for resisting genre labels. The result of their collaboration pairs “vivid stories of trauma, addiction and recovery with their most soul-stirring music to date,” per a press release.
“‘Crawler’ is like the character of me in the dark warmth of my addiction—a crawler, a night crawler, someone on their knees, someone praying, someone surviving,” Talbot explains in the album’s press materials. “The grit of it. The weight of the world on you. All of those things is a ‘crawler.’”
Talbot, Bowen and company have a 23-date North American tour slated for October, beginning with a sold-out Saint Paul, Minnesota show on Oct. 7 and ending with two sold-out nights in Seattle on Nov. 9-10. Then, after a four-night run at London’s O2 Academy Brixton (three nights of which are—you guessed it—sold out), IDLES will spend January, February and March of 2022 touring the U.K. and E.U.
Watch the “The Beachland Ballroom” video below and see the details of CRAWLER and IDLES’ tour dates further down. You can preorder their new album here.
CRAWLER Tracklist:
01. MTT 420 RR
02. The Wheel
03. When the Lights Come On
04. Car Crash
05. The New Sensation
06. Stockholm Syndrome
07. The Beachland Ballroom
08. Crawl!
09. Meds
10. Kelechi
11. Progress
12. Wizz
13. King Snake
14. The End
CRAWLER Album Art:
IDLES Tour Dates:
October
07 – Saint Paul, MN @ Palace Theatre SOLD OUT
08 – Chicago @ Riviera Theatre SOLD OUT
09 – Detroit @ Saint Andrew’s Hall SOLD OUT
10 – Columbus, Ohio @ Newport Music Hall SOLD OUT
13 – Boston @ House of Blues SOLD OUT
13 – Philadelphia @ The Fillmore
15-16 – New York @ Terminal 5 – SOLD OUT
17-18 – Washington, D.C @ 9:30 Club SOLD OUT
20 – Asheville, N.C @ The Orange Peel SOLD OUT
21 – Nashville @ Cannery Ballroom SOLD OUT
22 – Atlanta @ Heaven at the Masquerade
25 – Austin, Texas @ Stubb’s – SOLD OUT
26 – Dallas @ Granada Theater SOLD OUT
27 – San Antonio, TX @ Paper Tiger SOLD OUT
28 – Phoenix @ The Pressroom SOLD OUT
30-31 – Pioneertown, CA @ Pappy & Harriet’s SOLD OUT
November
01 – Pomona CA @ Glass House SOLD OUT
03-05 – Los Angeles @ Fonda Theatre SOLD OUT
06 – San Francisco @ The Warfield SOLD OUT
08 – Portland @ Crystal Ballroom SOLD OUT
09 – Seattle @ Showbox SOLD OUT
10 – Seattle @ Showbox SoDo SOLD OUT
January 2022
16-18 – London @ O2 Academy Brixton SOLD OUT
19 – London @ O2 Academy Brixton
21 – Cardiff @ Motorpoint Arena SOLD OUT
22 – Birmingham @ O2 Academy SOLD OUT
24-26 – Dublin / Vicar Street SOLD OUT
28-30 – Manchester / O2 Victoria Warehouse SOLD OUT
February 2022
01 – Sheffield @ O2 Academy SOLD OUT
02 – Newcastle @ O2 City Hall SOLD OUT
03-05 – Glasgow @ Barrowland Ballroom SOLD OUT
18 – Hamburg @ Docks SOLD OUT
19-20 – Amsterdam @ Melkweg SOLD OUT
22 – Berlin @ Columbiahalle SOLD OUT
23 – Cologne @ E-Work SOLD OUT
24 – Munich @ Muffathalle SOLD OUT
26 – Brussels @ Ancienne Belgique SOLD OUT
28 – Paris @ Elysee Montmartre SOLD OUT
March 2022
01 – Paris @ Elysee Montmartre SOLD OUT
02 – Lyon @ Le Transbordeur
03 – Milan @ Fabrique
06 – Toulouse @ Le Bikini
07 – Bilbao @ Santana
09 – Barcelona @ Razzmatazz
10 – Madrid @ La Riviera
11 – Lisbon @ Coliseum
