Watch IDLES’ video for abrasive new single ‘Car Crash’

IDLES have shared the video for their abrasive new single ‘Car Crash’, the latest track to be taken from their upcoming album ‘CRAWLER’.

The Bristol band will release their fourth album next week (November 12), just over a year since the release of its predecessor, 2020’s ‘Ultra Mono’.

The ‘Car Crash’ video features clips of car crashes from old films, edited together as one. It was created by Matthew Cusick and edited by the band’s guitarist Lee Kiernan. Cusick has been compiling car chase scenes from American films throughout the 20th century since 2001, and said his project now has “what it was always missing… a killer soundtrack”.

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The song itself, meanwhile, was inspired by IDLES frontman Joe Talbot’s own near-death experience in a car accident. “It’s the horrific, comedown hangover – waking up in the morning and realising the smashes, like, what the fuck am I doing with my life?” he explained in a press release.

Mark Bowen, IDLES guitarist and co-producer on the record, added: “We wanted it to be as violent as possible to reflect that event. We recorded the drums beforehand and put them on a vinyl acetate. Whenever you replay an acetate, because it is kind of like a liquid, it degrades every time.

“It touches on things being transient and momentary — even a single drum hit. It’s like a memory, when the moment has passed and you deal with the repercussions over and over again, and they morph and change into something else.”






The new track follows a mysterious teaser that was shared by the band last week (October 27), which featured a phone number. When the number was dialled, it played what sounded like a car driving and weird, warped screams. After a few minutes, the call automatically hung up.

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IDLES will head out on a sold-out UK and Ireland tour next year, which features four consecutive nights at London’s O2 Academy Brixton. Before that, Talbot will take part in a series of Q&A shows with Creation Records’ Alan McGee in December.