Idles / JOY AS AN ACT OF RESISTANCE

IDLES’ new album concerns the tragedies of illness and loss, the addict’s vacillation between sobriety and vice, and the discomfort of rational people at the current state of the world. Joe Talbot, the band’s sardonic, growling singer, lost his disabled mother, cleaned up his substance abuse, and watched the xenophobic Brexit go down—all while his Bristol-based post-punk quintet blew up in his home country. While they mined grief and addiction on their heralded 2017 debut, Brutalism, its follow-up seeks to further focus their notorious, explosive, tongue-in-cheek energy. Now the name of the game is to see past the pain: Joy as an Act of Resistance.