Idlewild - 'Warnings / Promises' (Parlophone) Released 07/03/05

It’s perfectly healthy for musicians to evolve over time. In fact, unless you’re a staunch fan blinded by your own heavily biased views, bands that lazily regurgitate the same tired formula are just a bore. Of course, developing can be double-edged sword. Take Radiohead, for example, bar one mesmerising single (‘Creep’), they began life as a highly americanised and uninspired band. Several years later they were producing genre-defining, almost alien music that made for arguably some of the greatest albums of all time. Conversely, we have the Manics who started as noisy, highly relevant and politically motivated commentators for an anguished bohemian generation. Fast forward a few years and they’re producing stirring, radio friendly stadium fillers that some say lack the vitality and substance of their earlier work.   

So where do our modest Scottish chums Idlewild fit into all of this, we hear you ask? Cast your minds back six years or so and they were a twitchy, spasmodic band with Roddy Woomble as the perfect yapping, blood-vessel-busting frontman. Now, as the first listen to ‘Warnings/Promises’ seemingly confirms, they’re REM clones happy to perch on the M.O.R. but commercially lucrative fence next to the likes of Keane, Stereophonics et al. Worse, now re-located to L.A, it even seems as though Roddy Woomble has caught that nasty Tim Burgess syndrome. Yet contrary to the apparent futility of things, and after some careful nurturing, ‘Warnings/Promises’ is still a satisfying listen.

Take opener ‘Love Steals Us From Loneliness’. It’s unquestionably glossy and squeaky-clean, but has a certain magnetism and beguiling quality. Elsewhere, ‘I Understand It’ and ‘As If I Hadn’t Slept’ are positively uplifting and endearing – even tough comparisons to ‘Shiny Happy People’-era REM are sadly inescapable. And on the rousing ‘Blame It On Obvious Ways’, Woomble sounds incredibly convincing - a hardened cynic could even feel his anguish. Reviewed pragmatically, ‘Warnings/Promises’ is a cohesive work and balances the slightly rockier and acoustic driven tracks perfectly in the build up to the piece-de-résistance ‘Goodnight’.

True, songs such as ‘The Space Between All Things’ and ‘Disconnected’ tread the wrong side of middling and may even have you reaching for the skip button. And the aimless ‘Welcome Home’ and the hidden track have the impression of gap fillers and contribute nothing to the album. So, in all, despite the broodiness and gravity of it all ‘Warning/Promises’ does not elevate Idlewild to the status of being important, nor does it add anything to the musical landscape, but on the whole its pleasant enough and is certain to sell by the bucket load.