Garage punk outfit The Idiot Kids kick the door off its hinges and dare you to keep up. Hard, thumping, and unapologetically direct, ‘Instants’ thrives on momentum, a pulse that never quite lets your heart rate settle. ‘Instants’ swings with a clenched fist, powered by instinct. The result is an album that feels feral and deeply alive.
Jon-Mikal’s decision to abandon overthinking is the defining force here. Written, recorded, mixed, and mastered in a short, explosive burst, ‘Instants’ captures the electricity of first ideas before doubt can dull the edges. It’s an album that doesn’t ask for permission, it responds. Its sound is thunderous and tightly wound, driven by thunderous drums, distortion, and a restless energy that mirrors the emotional overload of existing in the moment. Every track feels like it’s straining at a leash.
Lyrically, ‘Instants’ zooms out from the personal specifics of previous album ‘Chapels’ while still carrying its emotional DNA. Themes of exhaustion, instant gratification, anxiety, addiction, and suicidal ideation are woven through the record with heart-wrenching clarity. These songs don’t romanticise the mess, they sit with it. There’s a constant push and pull between numbness and overload, between wanting to escape and wanting to connect, and that tension gives the album its edge.
Gut-punchers like ‘Zeros & Ones’ hit particularly hard, tapping into the social and political division of this digital age. It’s confrontational without being preachy, cathartic without becoming indulgent. ‘Time For Me’ offers another standout moment, pairing forceful instrumentation with lyrics that feel self-protective and defiant, it’s a refusal to be swallowed whole by expectation, systems, or self-destruction.
Most striking is ‘The Letter’, a devastating and deeply affecting closer that lands with force after the album’s relentless pace. It’s intimate without being fragile, providing a moment of emotional reckoning that lingers long after the final note fades. It’s the kind of ending that doesn’t resolve things neatly, but leaves you changed. That ‘Instants’ is the first Idiot Kids record performed entirely by Jon-Mikal only deepens its impact. There’s no dilution, no compromise, it’s raw, it’s focused, and it feels necessary. ‘Instants’ isn’t just an album; it’s a release, a record for misfits navigating a world that rarely slows down long enough to let you breathe.
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