PHOTO: Tom Sheehan

Rod Jones - Guitar
Colin Newton - Drums
Roddy Woomble - Vocals
Gavin Fox - Bass
Allan Stewart - Guitar

"Their best album yet....pratically flawless"- NME

IDLEWILD ON THE ROAD (March / April with FRENCH KICKS, June with PEARL JAM)

Maybe it’s the lush climate, maybe it’s the protective isolation, but something about the Scottish Highlands yields a hearty strain of rock band. Idlewild, which sprung from these volcanic hills, formed at Edinburgh University in 1995, thrashed around on pub stages for a year or two, then underwent a classic evolution: from distortion-wielding punk scrappers to commanding, elegant songwriters and absolutely enthralling performers -- with the edge retained, following the same path greats like the Replacements did over the course of a decade. But they did it in two albums, with a third now crowning the achievement.

After a debut single and mini LP that drew the immediate attention of influential Radio One DJ Steve Lamacq, Idlewild’s first full-length album, 1999’s Hope Is Important, was a faithful document of their raucous live shows, amassing as much forceful riffage as four Scottish art students (singer Roddy Woomble, guitarist Rod Jones, bassist Bob Fairfoull and drummer Colin Newton) could muster. While Hope’s positive reception was enough to rank Idlewild among the brightest of new, punk-inflected British bands, the group evolved naturally and quickly.
Named the “Number One Record You Didn’t Hear” by Spin magazine, 2001’s 100 Broken Windows bristled with the kind of pointed riffs and post-punk intensity few associated with the band’s region. But it also revealed a sure knack for vocal harmonies and Woomble's distinctive lyricism. "Suddenly, we had this fanbase that was fifty-percent people that wanted to push their friends and throw beer around and fifty percent people who were actually really interested in the words," says Woomble.

Emboldened by this giddy, if two-fold reception, the group continued touring America and began work on their next album. They returned home from the U.S. five months later feeling those songs already “sounded a little out of date,” says Woomble. “So we started again.” They spent a week in New York with the perfect sounding board for a bunch of American rockophiles: Patti Smith guitarist and encyclopedic rock guru Lenny Kaye. “It was kind of amazing really,” says Woomble. “He just had such different instincts about our songs. He’d say, ‘Oh you should build this up more,’ or ‘Why hold back here?’ It really changed our attitude.”

Inspired, they marshaled forces and retreated to the solitude of a friend’s Highlands sheep-herding farm where they spent three weeks exploring and refining 20-odd songs, returning to the studio to record them with 100 Broken Windows producer Dave Eringa.

The result is The Remote Part, a magnificent, 12-song album that synthesizes elements of its two predecessors into an expansive, strikingly assured new vision of the band. It charges from the gate with “You Held the World in Your Arms,” a U.K. top ten single. The ferocious “A Modern Way of Letting Go” comes next, maintaining the impression of four wired, gifted Husker Du acolytes before the third track comes along and utterly upends it.
“American English” is epic balladry with the sort of trembling beauty you might expect from U2 or Coldplay –-until you listened through the first verse. Here, Idlewild manages the kind of musical bait-and-switch perfected by Bob Dylan, Elvis Costello, and few others: a song that explicitly pushes you away while its gorgeous melody pulls you in.

Near the end of the stately closer, “In Remote Part/Scottish Fiction,” octogenarian Scottish poet Edwin Morgan utters his brief poem atop the rising tide of guitars, piano, and drums. Woomble taped him after a years-long correspondence he began with Morgan since becoming a fan in school. “I taped him reading this poem about Scottish identity,” Woomble says. “But really about how one feels about the place they grew up.”

What The Remote Part is, on the other hand, is a passionately- and expertly-made rock album, by a group of artisans coming into their own at a ripe, old average age of 25. The album swings from metallic ferocity (“(I Am) What I Am Not,” “Out of Routine,” “Stay The Same”) to elegant songcraft (“I Never Wanted,” “Live In a Hiding Place,” “Tell Me Ten Words”) so convincingly and with such assurance that it would verge on schizophrenia, if the voice and sensibility weren’t so distinct.

With its breadth of style and mood, The Remote Part -- already gold in Great Britain -- threatens to make Idlewild a new, national rallying point: a Next Big Thing from the British Isles. But Woomble doesn’t see such things geographically. “We’re just more comfortable being ourselves,” he says. “I mean, the record’s not specifically about Scottish pride. It’s more like ‘We’re from Scotland and this is what we think about, take it or leave it.”