The Birthday Suit (Rod Jones from Idlewild) – The Eleventh Hour
After their last album Post Electric Blues and the subsequent touring that ensued, Idlewild, one of Scotland’s greatest exports went on hiatus. Roddy Woomble once again dived into exploring his ever-growing passion for traditional folk music releasing The Impossible Song & Other Songs earlier this year. The band’s chief riff maker Rod Jones has now also begun his own solo career. Entitled The Birthday Suit, Jones has recaptured the raw energy of Idlewild’s earlier music in 100 Broken Windows and fragments of Hope Is Important. With the bands trajectory heading into a more rock/folk fusion which with current interests almost impossible to stop, it is refreshing to see that the heart and soul of Jones is still rooted firmly in the world of that angsty rock driven sound. There still remains that underlying nod to the traditional in certain tracks but as a whole this is a hark back to his early days, which is fine by us.
The album ‘The Eleventh Hour’ is officially released on 11/11/11 via Rod’s own Sing It Alone Records, but if you’re quick you can snap up an early bird digital copy for the bargain price of £5.00 on the bands official website http://www.thebirthdaysuit.co.uk/. Comprised of 11 sumptuous tracks this will be the drug of choice for Idlewild fans across the world, and should go most of the way to softening the blow that our beloved Idlewild won’t be around for a while.
It kicks off with ‘Do You Ever?’ which has a dirty overdriven fuzzed up riff throughout, thoroughly low-fi. ‘Hope Me Home’ has a great vibe to it reminiscent of ‘When I Argue I See Shapes’, great lyrics “I don’t need your help, just a little bit of hope to keep me whole”, with elements of the opening songs riffs thrown in to great effect. The tempo is taken down a notch for ‘They Say I Love You’ which has elements of more recent Idlewild material in it. The frantic drum intro for ‘On My Own’ see’s Jones sounding a tad like Brian Moloko and the whole track has a very strong Placebo feel to it. In fact the whole album while obviously drawing off Idlewild seems to be paying homage to great late 90’s guitar indie rock. ‘Sell It All’ has an infectious clean riff that provides the platform for a really strong vocal from Jones. ‘World Gone By’ could almost be a forgotten track off Post Electric Blues and embodies all that Idlewild have developed into complete with fiddle Jones makes this all feel totally organic though. ‘Are You Ok?’ is a great catchy upbeat number with a fantastic layered vocal which breaks out wonderfully after about a minute of the track. ‘A Nation’ has all the trademark guitar hooks that Jones has become known for, strong driven intro, picked in-verse riff building wonderfully to a charged chorus. ‘Don’t Look Down’ tips its hat to traditional Scottish rock with elements of the Pogues chucked in for good measure. Title track ‘The Eleventh Hour’ follows and certainly doesn’t stand on ceremony, getting right down to business with lyrics like “It’s late in the day, the hours that remain only serving to remind of where you were, it’s always too late to change your mind when all you see is all you held before” (don’t cuss me too much if I got that wrong) but it certainly looks like Rod was lamenting over his past but the rest of the song has an optimism of the future. Closing with the beautiful ‘Talking Over You’ which has a lovely vocal by band mate Jacqueline Irvine to complement Jones’s tone.
In summary a cracking album that will delight fans of Idlewild, but it isn’t geared exclusively towards them by any stretch of the imagination. It has all the get up and go of 100 Broken Windows, the album that launched Idlewild into the public eye, while keeping the sensibilities of later releases like Post Electric Blues.
Rating: 4/5 Best Track: Hope Me Home For Fans Of: Idlewild (duh), Oasis, Placebo Track List:
1. Do You Ever?
2. Hope Me Home
3. They Say I Love You
4. On My Own
5. Sell It All
6. World Gone By
7. Are You Ok?
8. A Nation
9. Don’t Look Down
10. The Eleventh Hour
11. Talking Over You
The Birthday Suit is:
Rod Jones (vocals, guitar, keys)
Jacqueline Irvine (backing vox and viola) also of Brave little note
Steve Morrison (drums)
David Jack (bass)
Catrin Pryce-Jones (Violin)
Steve McLaughlin (live guitarist, not on record)
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/#!/rodjonesandthebirthdaysuit
