IDLES: 'We’re too popular now so we have to be taken down a peg' 

 As the UK rockers release an impressive new album, Ultra Mono, their Northern Irish guitarist talks new music and dealing with their critics 

Northern Irish guitarist Mark Bowen, second from right, and the other members of Idles, who’ve just released Ultra Mono. 

IDLES are a band you can believe in. Whether it’s their recorded output to date, such as second album Joy as an Act of Resistance, which railed against bigotry and offered a shoulder to cry on, or their live shows, with raucous fans, the Bristol five piece seemed like a new breed of guitar-toting lads.

  So Idles are a band you can believe in. Unless you don’t. Unless you think they’re too on the nose with their lyrics and music, that they don’t back up their big statements in their music with offline action. ‘Why aren’t they denouncing the Tories?’ seemed like a regular criticism tweeted at them.  So if you already fall into one of those two camps, chances are your stance won’t be changing after listening to third album Ultra Mono, just released on Partisan Records, also home to Fontaines DC, who have supported them across the US.