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Oct 15, 2025 Web Exclusive By Andy Robbins

Some bands age like fine wine, while others turn to vinegar. Idlewild’s eponymous new record should make 2025 a vintage year.

Over the course of nine albums and from teenage punks to alt-rock elders, their sound has continued to evolve. But this self-titled 10th album—their first in six years—is where the Scottish band have chosen to lean into the trademark literate indie-rock that attracted much of their fanbase in the first place.

Unsurprisingly for a record mostly written on singer Roddy Woomble’s Hebridean home island of Iona and recorded in guitarist Rod Jones’ own Post Electric studio, it’s an album that feels comfortingly familiar. It’s partly that familiarity that makes this one of the band’s most easily accessible records. Even casual fans whose attention may have drifted since Warnings/Promises, or even The Remote Part, will find themselves drawn back into the fold after hearing these new songs.

As Woomble himself says of the record in a press release: “We’re looking back without being nostalgic—we were thinking about all the songs we’d made and the new songs we were making. For the first time we were referencing ourselves, not in a nostalgic way, in a positive, creative way, realizing that we had a ‘sound’ and the songs we were writing should celebrate that.”

With 10 tracks spread over 30 minutes, Idlewild never outstays its welcome. The wailing guitar riff that introduces “Stay Out of Place” delivers a suitably bombastic opening that is maintained on “Like I Had Before.” There are shades of “American English” and “El Capitan” on “It’s Not the First Time,” which is one of the most radio friendly tracks that Idlewild have ever released. Opening with Lucci Rossi’s delicate piano motif and boasting an arena-sized chorus, it’s packed with the qualities that elevated the band to their mid-noughties commercial peak.

Woomble’s vocal melodies consistently complement those within the music. There are no moments where they trip over themselves as they may have done on some of the band’s most recent records. Album mid-point “Make It Happen” doesn’t quite retrace the gloriously frantic punk rock paths of their earliest material, but its waspish guitar hook definitely doffs its cap to their noisier moments.

If there was one criticism of some of the band’s post-Parlophone records, it’s that they sometimes petered out after strong openings. The same can’t be said here, thanks to possibly the strongest closing trio since 100 Broken Windows.

“Writers of the Present Time” in particular is a standout track on a hugely enjoyable record. Jones’ opening guitar arpeggio hints at Pavement and R.E.M. (both acknowledged as favorites of several band members), before the song segues into yet another anthemic chorus that will have you humming it down supermarket aisles.

“End With Sunrise,” meanwhile, might be the record’s closer, but its triumphant squall of guitar makes it sound like just the beginning of another exciting era in the band’s history. It’s the perfect full stop to a record that’s a shot in the arm for fans who have stuck by Idlewild’s side for the past three decades. (www.idlewild.co.uk)

Author rating: 8/10