Joy as an Act of Resistance. by Idles

Joy as an Act of Resistance., the second album from Bristol's Idles, arrived on Partisan on 31 August 2018, a year after their debut Brutalism had kicked the door in. The title nods to a 2008 poem by Toi Derricotte, and the songs dig into Joe Talbot's own rough history while taking aim at toxic masculinity, Brexit, class and the politics of immigration, with self-love offered as the antidote.

It's a record that shouts with its arms open. Mark Bowen and Lee Kiernan scrape and gouge at their guitars, Adam Devonshire and Jon Beavis pound the floor out from under them, and Talbot barks tenderness like it's a threat. Critics lined up behind it, it reached the UK top five, "Danny Nedelko" and "Never Fight a Man with a Perm" were the singles, and the attention it drew cleared the road to Ultra Mono, their first UK number one.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.