Their third album in four years for Idles, “Ultra Mono” is what we needed to hear right now. Recorded pre-lockdown, it’s the sound of a spiritual resistance made flesh. Never give in. Never surrender. Keep going. Turning the righteous fury at a substandard reality into a directed sound, the sound – a relentless roar of energetic guitars and screamed vocals – this is the sound of the oppressed finally given voice.

Bottom line is that culture is letting us down. There’s no popular protest songs. There’s no accepted expressions of fury. Dissent – such as pointing out this governments utter fuckshambles of operation – is silenced or shut down. Government help – the basic standard of care we expect from the state – now comes with strings, to not criticise the Government, or to accept restrictions. The only thing that matters is not how bad it actually is, but how bad it looks. The only anger we seem to be allowed to express is punching down in a Two Minute Hate : in wanting to machine gun powerless and terrified immigrants in dinghies whilst taxevading multi millionaires parasitically bleed us dry and bankrupt the nation.

There’s nothing I hear that reflects the state of Koyannisqatsi that is everyday life. Life as constant war : where we are reduced by external forces away from beauty and art into a state of expending our energy on simply staying alive – that is the constant war we live in now – as we battle for food, for space, for air, for money, by a vampire upperclass who seek to divide and conquer us. How does it feel to have won the war nobody wants?

“UltraMono” is the sound of joy as an act of resistance. Nothing has changed, and everything has changed. But UltraMono describes exactly what it is ; both in terms of what the record is – a monochrome, single dimensional manifesto set to music, and in terms of what it is against.

UltraMono is also a state of mind. An expression of defiance against the poverty of ideas – a terrible version of this Disunited Kingdom where there is only one accepted way of thinking, one culture, one food, one colour, where the government are great, where the only virtue is the size of your bank account, and where being unemployed – or simply underpaid - is not just a personal failing but a fitting and deserved punishment exacted on the powerless by the powerful. Even today, as the government suggests artists and creatives are unviable – and thus need to “Retrain” – that the Government want a dull, dead world. A land without art, music, culture, film, poetry, beauty. Where the only beauty they recognise is naked raw profit and the only future they have to offer is that of an economically productive unit generating tax reciepts and profit.

UltraMono is also perhaps, a way to describe a form of communism ; where everyone is equal. Where we are all different, but also where we are all the same.

It’s raw. It’s loud. It’s beautiful.

And sometimes simplicity is beautiful. But on occasion, the lyrics veer from simple to banal. Given the literate, direct words – and the ambiguous, multilayered meanings in language in the previous lyrics on the previous albums, sometimes I can’t help but think that the lyrics on “Ultra Mono” are its weak point. The lyrics are occasionally one dimensional, and lacking the layered meanings and weight of the previous two albums. But the album itself has to be experienced as a whole – it’s strength comes from raw and undiluted, unfiltered directness, songs built on a single, central riff, a core emotion. The words of “War” might be lacking, but the rest of the song – including that stunning drum break at 1.31 – are a fierce declaration of intent. This album leaps from the traps like a greyhound at a race, a breakneck paced bullet of sound aimed at your ears. And, whilst individual tracks such as “Mr Motivator” and “Grounds” might not have immediately caught your attention in the way that say, “Danny Nedelko” or “Great” did, the cumulative effect of the record is like an avalanche, a growing ball of sound and fury signifying the sound of thunder, the strength in numbers, the roar of the sidelined. A riot is the language of the unheard, and if “UltraMono” is anything, it’s the sound of a righteous riot on vinyl.

The album holds back its killer blow until deep into the second side. “Reigns” is possibly the best thing the band have ever done. A tight, coiled snake of a song, it posits a series of ever pointed questions that explore the power dynamic of these deeply fucked up times.

“How does it feel to have blue blood running through your veins? How does it feel to have shanked the working class into dust? How does it feel to have won the war nobody wants?”

Sure, it’s a number 1 album, and I can’t recall the last time I bought – or even listened to – a Number 1 album in the charts. And bieng Number 1 doesn’t mean selling the kind of numbers, you used to have to sell. What this means is a Number 1 album is raw, vibrant, uncompromising, and a fierce expression of protest for the first time in a long time.

Sometimes straightforward and simple is all you need. This is the album 2020 needed : a fierce act of unyielding integrity that resists what we are told and begs us to think for ourselves. “UltraMono” – a concentration of ideas and a focus that directs energy into a powerful result is also a mission statement and a warning. Don’t go gentle.