On the eve of their biggest headline show to date (at Alexandra Palace in London) Bristolian post punk quintet IDLES released their first live album, A Beautiful Thing, recorded in Paris at Le Bataclan in December 2018.

Before we even get to the record Le Bataclan is, of course, famous for less positive reasons than its history of rock shows and I can’t help but think that the band’s choice to record a live album there goes some way to rehabilitating that image and, to me, it does a great job of it.

IDLES reputation as a live band has, to a degree, made their name with performances that have taken on a kind of legendary status for their visceral and compelling honesty and power, typified by their appearance at Glastonbury in 2019 which became a highlight of the weekend leading BBC to add the whole thing to iPlayer for an extended period rather than just the usual month, meaning a live album feels like a natural step for them.

To the album then, which comes as a double vinyl or CD set as well as a digital version, and it gets under way with the brooding Colossus which also opens their latest studio album Joy As An Act Of Resistance.

Before the band launch into the song’s faster second half frontman Joseph Talbot states to the crowd that the night should be about love and positivity through music.

In part this is a request that everyone look after each other in the mosh pit that will inevitably kick off in seconds but his words also have a wider feel of a statement of intent for the band and what they do as a whole — this could easily come across as hackneyed but feels genuine and that sense of honesty is something that goes on to mark the record.

From there it takes in much of both Brutalism and the aforementioned Joy…, recreating them in a way that both does justice to the songs technically while also adding that extra something that comes from a live performance.

Stylistically it’s a very raw example of a live record, seemingly free of post production over dubs and tidying up, led by Talbot’s voice that I’m amazed lasts out the set it sounds so strained and raw from the start.

His vocal is underpinned by the machine like drumming of Jon Beavis and hyper-solid bass work of Adam Devonshire which provides the foundation for Talbot and guitarists Lee Kiernan and Mark Bowen to take off on their own flights of fancy while the tracks continue driving forward beneath.

That’s not to say the guitarists play badly by any stretch, far from it, but it means they have the freedom to keep the whole thing feeling alive and the precision is more than there when needed.

Colossus is followed by another ‘single’ from Joy…, Never Fight A Man With A Perm, that serves to get the audience warmed up before Mother sees the band tackle things somewhat more dark and complex but the power and energy remain with the sound of the whole thing, audience included, fizzing from the speakers.

Danny Nedelko of course provides a fine singalong while 1049 Gotho, a favourite among the band’s fan base but one that I hadn’t quite connected with before, suddenly comes into focus here thanks to that impassioned and vulnerable rawness from Talbot.

This same delivery also renders the cry of ‘I kissed a boy and I liked it’ in Samaritans into a kind of battle cry while the band’s Joy Division-esque sound on Television brings things to a kind of crescendo to round off the first disc.

Starting off with a rousing Great the second half features slightly deeper cuts from Brutalism and Joy… and has a slightly different energy to it.

For the most part, the same spirit underpins it all with only Love Song not quite connecting as well (for me at least) and White Privilege showing a different, slightly more eccentric, side of the band that doesn’t come across in quite the same way.

From Gram Rock onwards though it’s all back on form with Exeter providing that direct contact between band and audience hinted at throughout as Talbot brings crowd members onto the stage, re-stating the positive passion and energy statement from earlier in the night.

The main set is then rounded off by Well Done which comes with a great sense of fun along with purpose taking what’s on the studio version and elevating it as a majority of this recording does.

Things are then rounded off with the encore of Rottweiler (a take on Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You performed at the actual show is omitted, probably wisely in the long run) that brings things to a rousing close with a cry of ‘Liberté, égalité, fraternité — au revoir!’ from Talbot before an extended noisy outro that takes what’s on the album to new levels.

This all makes A Beautiful Thing just that and one of the better live albums around as, while it’s not a slick and tightly produced example of the style with obvious over dubbing, it captures IDLES at that crucial point in their career with the energy and passion that drove them at the start still intact but the power of experience and size of following newly present leading it to feel like something more with, amplified by the often serious subject matter, a streak of raw positivity that is hard to argue with.