More about: Idles

Eternally excellent IDLES have released another Very Good music video to add to their collection. This one is an arcade-inspired cartoon for tongue-in-cheek, toxic masculinity takedown ‘Never Fight A Man With A Perm’. 

The video, which you can see below, is a fully-illustrated beat ‘em up arcade game complete with visceral details - a bursting neck vein here, a popping eyeball there. It’s been designed and directed by the team behind Fluffer Records, whose bulging, brightly-coloured illustrations are now famous in the underground music world. 

See a hyper-masc, cig-smoking Joe Talbot fight Barry Biffa, and ignore his own rule to fight the man with the perm Timmy the Thyroid, whose schoolboy shorts and yellow barnet remind us somewhat of PM hopeful Boris Johnson…

Progressing from level to level, Joe’s 2D self high-kicks his way through the first fight before locking horns - and eventually tongues - with the “walking thyroid”/“one big neck with sausage hands” in the song. In classic IDLES fashion, the favourable narrative is taken…kissing trumps fighting every time, even and perhaps especially between two men. 

It’s Russell Taysom behind the blocky, homicidal cartoons, Stella Belle Hex on animation duties, and Al Brown as director. The Fluffer team have created a whole host of characters, including each member of IDLES and dystopian backgrounds that veer wildly from a decrepit high street to a lush upper class hall, and finally, to pacifist heaven (complete with Mahatma Gandhi.) 

IDLES head out on their most-impressive tour to date this December:

DECEMBER
02 - Glasgow, Barrowland Ballroom - SOLD OUT
03 - Glasgow, Barrowland Ballroom - SOLD OUT
04 - Manchester, Academy - SOLD OUT
05 - Leeds, O2 Academy - SOLD OUT
07 - London, Alexandra Palace - SOLD OUT

More about: Idles