Album Review: The Ideas

If you like your blues with grit and your punk-rock with a heartbeat, turn this album up. This album lands like a live set in a sweaty room – immediate, unpolished and full of personality. It’s the kind of debut that smells faintly of cigarette smoke and cheap beer, and you can almost see the crowd pogoing in the corner. For a two‑piece from Auckland, it’s a statement: small band, big noise, no apologies.

Their self-titled album was released less than a month ago (24th April 2025).

A fast guitar and solid drums kick things off in On The Auckland Line / Going Back To Memphis, a punk‑style start that lets listeners feel the loneliness of trying to make it as a New Zealand musician. It shifts and almost changes genre, making the first song feel like a double track: the Going Back To Memphis section mixes the punk rock opening with a fresh, fast blues‑rock intermission. A trick you don’t hear much. It’s a bold statement that this band won’t stick to all the rules. The final chords return to the slower The Auckland Line, and is setting you up for chills.

On Ain’t I Lovin’ You Baby, the vocalist shows the range of his raw roar. It’s classic head‑banging rock with a White Stripes feel; the two‑piece arrangement forces that comparison. A bass‑sounding guitar, fast high‑hats and deep drums drive it. No fancy tempo changes here, but the chilling lyrics about not being loved land hard after the roaring opening.

BB Gun Shooter is all the memories of the BB‑gun carnival stand or kids’ shooting range. That favourite gun you always picked or at least the one you loved, now has an anthem. If you ever had a fight with a mate over the best gun on the range, this is your apology song, maybe thirty years late…

Blues with a scratching rock edge is a great way to relive the moment you first met your Baby Blue. The album gives you moments where you can scream with the singer after one or two repeats of the lyrics. Not pinned to a single place, person or meaning, it reads like a noise‑blues homage to Elvis‑style storytelling “Baby, Let’s Play House”, showing real skill in making vocals carry meaning.

There’s an art in making something special out of a sample we all think we’ve heard but can’t place on Run Rabbit Run. Whether your memories are of 1940’s music or your Gen‑X brain hears a 90’s Weetabix ad, the sample that opens this noise‑blues single hooks you. It’s fast and pushes hi‑fi systems to their limits: high‑hats and guitar ride on a bed of driving low drums. Released as the second single on 27 February 2026, the artwork gives Watership Down vibes while asking if you should follow the white rabbit.

The choice of that 1930’s sample sets us up for a short history lesson on Jack The Ripper, released as the teaser single on 12 December 2025. It’s been slowly building a following and play count on Spotify. If the album is noise‑blues, this is running‑noise‑blues. It has an attractive speed that makes it the shortest track, but one you remember and return to.

More groovy tunes follow as we fall for the diverse riffs and tempos across this full album. Simply self‑titled The Ideas, it’s great to see we’re only halfway through a full record, not just an EP or a string of singles. Josiah and Max give us the full deal of what will sound amazing live. Baby Brother has a true blues heart; storytelling at its best. A very catching song that has a vibe of being a single just made for a rock radio station.

Wear Your Peacoat follows every rule the band set themselves: raw, noisy, but clean in every note. Earwig Studios in Beach Haven and the magic of Darren McShane made this album sound tight. From published interviews we learned the band used a “three live takes” approach; the takes chosen here sound complete and show the skills The Ideas have.

Recorded at Earwig Studios; engineered by Darren McShane, it’s available on Bandcamp and through 1:12 Records pressed on 180g black vinyl and on many streaming platforms. There is no excuse to miss this gem. The big statement hair of the two lads on the cover will be the tag you need to remember the album.

I Ain’t Paranoid has lyrics I’d pick to fit noise‑blues even if I didn’t know the genre existed. It’s blues with an almost punk pressure: tempo changes and sudden drops that come out of nowhere. Some scratchy, almost electronic tones creep out of the guitar, making this a truly unique track.

The blues sound isn’t far behind, and a swamp‑style guitar opens Shell In Cold Water Blues wailing and slow. Electric blues chops are on display before the song picks up the speed we hear across the record. Bands like the Sex Pistols, Beastie Boys, the closer to home DARTZ and the already mentioned White Stripes share threads with this sound, but The Ideas make it their own. The pumping doesn’t stop; the album has a few more tracks to finish off.

“But I was still on my own”, that line in I Had A Home brings us back to being alone. Raw and experimental, the band makes noise‑blues their home. A raging drum session leads to an epic crash; you hope Aotearoa is their true home. The Ideas deserve the following they’re building; festival slots over the last few years help, and this album should give punk‑style‑blues lovers a piece of vinyl to cherish.

Closing the album is a short palate cleanser: a lone guitar and intimate vocals on Max and Jo Got The Blues set you back in your chair. Maybe a little insight into Josiah Weston and Max Leask’s back story, but mostly a lovely blues to calm you down.

This record feels like a live set captured on wax. With rough edges, full volume and all the small imperfections that make a performance human. It’s an album that rewards repeated listens: the first time you are hit by the noise, the second you start to hear the craft. If you want to hear a band unafraid to bend the rules, to mix punk’s urgency with swampy blues and a touch of garage chaos, this is it. Turn it up and let the noise do the talking. These two deserve to be heard.