Idlewild: 100 Broken Windows : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

American rock & roll fans are turning again to the U.K., and no wonder: That's where the bands are. Like Coldplay, Travis and Doves, Idlewild radiate the musical vigor and raw emotion you used to get from American groups just a few years ago, before U.S. rock devolved into its current laughable state as a butt-hair parade of metal clones. On their excellent second album, 100 Broken Windows, these four Edinburgh indie dudes mine American punk guitars for texture and aggression while pursuing the great British tradition of cheerfully art-damaged lyrical pretension. The way vocalist Roddy Woomble ponders life, love and Gertrude Stein amid the noise suggests Stephen Patrick Morrissey sitting in with the Stooges. Highlights here include "I Don't Have the Map," "Actually It's Darkness" and the perfectly titled Mozz tribute "Let Me Sleep (Next to the Mirror)." Idlewild don't prove that U.K. bands rock better - just thank God they are willing to rock at all. (RS 865)

ROB SHEFFIELD