In the Randomised Record series, I take us both on an adventure to (re)discover my record collection. Fate decides: whether it be that obscure grunge album I bought recently or that emo rap record from 2017. Nothing is safe from the hands of the randomiser! I will listen to the entire album and highlight my favourite song off of it here on the blog. Do I still enjoy my records as much as when I bought ‘em? Let’s find out. Today, episode 9: ‘Joy as an Act of Resistance.’ (2018) by IDLES.

Could you believe it? It’s been 7 years since IDLES released ‘Joy as an Act of Resistance.’. Their second album blasted onto the (post-)punk scene as the follow up of ‘Brutalism’ and quickly became the Bristolians’ most popular and arguably most renowned album. Their name spread like a wildfire and in the blink of an eye, everyone and their grandma was all over IDLES. Fair enough, since 2018 was a year full of sh*t. Damn. I still can’t believe that’s 7 years ago already. So much has changed since then, right?! Well, not really.

Because here we are in 2025 finding it not that hard to reminisce back to those ‘good old days’ from 7 years ago. In fact, listening to this album makes it feel like time stood still. On one hand, that’s a job well done by IDLES crafting a brilliant piece of music. On the flip side it means the songs on this album are just as relevant as they were in 2018. Take ‘Samaritans’. Just like many other songs referring to lead singer Joe Talbot’s troubled past, but it doesn’t take much to segue the topic of toxic masculinity into today’s society. Or how about ‘Danny Nedelko’, all about Heavy Lungs’ lead singer and Ukrainian immigrant Danny Nedelko, with lyrics strongly criticising nationalism. And for those with an EU-passport living in the UK there’s ‘Great’, tacking something you’d hope we would have long forgotten about by now: Brexit. Sadly, as a Dutch person living in England, I can confirm this is still a hot topic for me every single day of the year. Gosh. I would’ve wished for me to feel a bit more positive and happy after listening to this great album again but instead, it’s made me sadly aware of how little progression we’ve really made in all these years. Each problem seems to lead to another and before you know it, the world’s burning up twice as fast, every nation’s hatred towards one another has multiplied and Donald Trump is back in charge of the USA again. How far we’ve come, aye? Yeah, right.