Album review: YUNGBLUD – Idols II

‘Pictures of idols rise up and fall,’ carries deep significance as the first line of the second instalment of YUNGBLUD’s Idols double set. All through this dramatic, monochrome era, Dom Harrison has been sizing up where he can affix his own portrait in a hall of fame. He’s made gigantic steps – fronting a documentary, making music with Aerosmith, squaring up to his doubters’ preconceptions of him with the gigantic rendition of Black Sabbath's Changes from last summer’s Back To The Beginning extravaganza (winning him a GRAMMY, no less). To match that, chapter one burned with a heightened sense of ambition, but its follow-up feels more complete, not just a sketch of the epic feeling he wants to create but the three-dimensional final product.

This new release is classy, tender, the sort of record that asks to be span as a sleek vinyl rather than streamed, but there’s a greater intimacy too. The waltzing verses of opener I Need You (To Make The World Seem Fine) – a song deeply in love with Pink Floyd's Shine On You Crazy Diamond – are laden with acoustic strumming and orchestral trills, but achieve a sense of cinema in an understated way. Later, Time dispenses with any bells and whistles and positions Dom alone with his guitar, preserving the cracks of imperfection in his voice so it feels as if he could be performing in a small, empty room.

Still, that sense of grandiosity was never going to be totally diminished. The Postman offers an injection of Dom’s fun side – ‘I’ve been waiting for the postman but he’s passed out on the floor,’ he quips over a jangling riff – while a new version of Zombie is a beefier, grittier but still crushingly emotional take on one of the era’s defining songs (and it helps that Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan’s husky tone suit it beautifully). Blueberry Hill is an elegant, faintly theatrical number dancing in Freddie Mercury’s footsteps, almost owing more to pop than his rockier roots, before Suburban Requiem ties a bow on it all with a classic phone-lights-in-air moment.

This might only be the length of an EP or deluxe edition as opposed to an entire other album, but these are unmistakably this era’s best songs. It’s not just the height of Dom’s ambition, but his maturation. As such, this is a record he could have only made now, after shedding the fear, self-doubt and pretence that once shackled him. It’s been a beautiful end to his most vital chapter so far.

Verdict: 4/5

For fans of: Queen, Aerosmith, 30 Seconds To Mars

Idols II is out now via Island Records/Locomotion.

Read this next:

• YUNGBLUD: “I needed to get my fight back. I’ve always been a fighter, and I’ve found it again”
• YUNGBLUD: “The way rock survives, thrives, prospers and gets bigger is if we all stick together”
• YUNGBLUD: “It’s so funny when people don’t understand me”