From Amazon.co.uk
Having spent the majority of their career languishing in the middle of indie's second division, churning out superior angular guitar pop to mild acclaim, Idlewild use
The Remote Part to make a bid for promotion to the grown-up's league. UK Top 10 single "You Held the World in Your Arms" luxuriates in a widescreen confidence and love of grand gestures that had previously eluded the Scottish four-piece and sibilant single "American English" is bigger still, an anthem penned with lighter waving and the absurdity of universal truths in mind. REM are still an obvious role model for Roddy Woomble and team, with songs like "(I Am) What I Am Not" and "Tell Me 10 Words" recalling
Document's similar shift in gear. Alas, Woomble is sometimes a little too in thrall to Michael Stipe's obtuse wordplay, hiding behind lines like "losing isn't learning to be lost, it's learning to know when you're lost" when he should, by his own admission, "sing a song about himself, not some invisible woman." Minor gripes aside, though,
The Remote Part finds Idlewild in excellent form, buzzing with ambition, energy and intelligence, broadening out their style to take in the acoustics of "I Never Wanted", the fuzzed up rock of "A Modern Way" and even a poetry reading on "In Remote Part".
--Ian Watson
Album Details
Third album for Scottish indie-rockers. 11 tracks including the first single, 'You Held The World In Your Arms'. Includes video/film enhanced section. 2002.
