Idlewild: The Remote Part : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

The Edinburgh, Scotland, foursome Idlewild are the most American of the Brit-pop class of 2000 that includes Doves and Coldplay. That translates to a willingness to rely more on punk-guitar thrash than on Radiohead-ish anti-rock. But on The Remote Part, Idlewild's third and strongest LP, they ratchet up the latent R.E.M.-isms, elevating themselves heads above their musical kin. And while singer Roddy Woomble's fascination with oldfangled pop topics such as love and identity reveals the soul and sensitivity of a classic Scottish poet, his lyrics run more to Michael Stipe obscure than Robert Burns direct: The gloriously soaring slow simmer of "American English" closes with the tautological refrain, "You'll find what you find/When you find there's nothing." What Idlewild have found is a way to go gentle without going soft.

GAYLORD FIELDS
(From RS 922, May 15, 2003)