A Man Takes a Ride to Remember in IDLES Epic Stop Motion Video for ‘Crawl!’

IDLES’ new album CRAWLER was released last fall and cemented their status as one of the most important bands making music today. With a live show nothing short of a spiritual experience, it’s not a surprise they have been added to the 2022 Coachella Music Festival. Coachella is one of several stops as part of their US spring run and is part of a huge world wide tour happening throughout 2022. 

The band is also back with a video (​​directed by Stink Films’ LOOSE) for new “Crawl!” - one of the many highlights of CRAWLER. The album was produced by IDLES’ Mark Bowen alongside Kenny Beats and marked a real turning point in the evolution of the band, adding a whole new dimension to the music the Bristolian five piece make.

Singer Joe Talbot writes candid and poetic lyrics that deal with the harsh realities of addiction and the process of recovery that can ensue. On “Crawl!” he tells us “this is the turning point, after you’ve crashed. It’s a good anthem for me to discuss with people who aren’t on the other side or who aren’t sober. You're not the best version of you and you need to hold yourself accountable for your addictions and who you’re letting down. But it doesn't mean you're a bad person. “Crawl” the title is like, keep going. You'll get there. “Crawler” is like the character of me in the dark warmth of my addiction — a crawler, a night crawler, someone on their knees, someone praying, someone surviving. The grit of it. The weight of the world on you. All of those things is a “crawler.”

Mark Bowen continues “If you're being forced to crawl, you’ve surrendered to the notion that you can't get up and run or walk. You're having to surrender your hands and knees to the process of moving forward. Joe was dealing with a lot of these traumas and things going on in his life, and one of the ways he was dealing with them was with drugs and alcohol. He wasn’t able to walk, run or deal with it, so he had to crawl through it. It’s the first track on the album where you see the defiance of that: this is what I am. I’m pretty shit at some things and pretty good at other things, but I’m all me. This is the real turning point on the album, where there’s a self-realisation and defiance.”

The band will be returning to the States for their biggest US tour ever, following 2021’s sold out CRAWLER tour.