IDLES have released the new music video for their latest single ‘Car Crash’ from their forthcoming album, Crawler.
Last year, the band secured their first number one album in the UK with Ultra Mono. Since then, they’ve been keeping up a frantic working pace with the release of singles like ‘Sodium’ and the screening of the documentary Don’t Go Gentle: A Film About IDLES as well as contributing to Metallica tribute albums and headlining major festivals.
The single ‘Car Crash’ follows ‘The Beachland Ballroom’ and as Joe Talbot explained in a press release: “It’s the horrific, comedown hangover – waking up in the morning and realising the smashes, like, what the fuck am I doing with my life?”
With Mark Bowen adding that it had ties to a real car crash: “We wanted it to be as violent as possible to reflect that event. We recorded the drums beforehand and put them on a vinyl acetate. Whenever you replay an acetate, because it is kind of like a liquid, it degrades every time.”
Concluding: “It touches on things being transient and momentary — even a single drum hit. It’s like a memory, when the moment has passed and you deal with the repercussions over and over again, and they morph and change into something else.”
This same jarring intent is reflected in the video itself. Directed by Matthew Cusick and edited by IDLES very own Lee Kieran, it features a quick cut compilation of car crash footage.
Cusack had collated the car crash footage from American movies of the 20th century and commented: “What it was always missing… a killer soundtrack.” It should certainly prove a hit with any J.G. Ballard fans.
