Dominic Harrison, better known to the world as YUNGBLUD, has always played by his own rulebook. But on Idols, his fourth and most audacious album, the shape-shifting British rocker doesn’t just break those rules, he burns the rulebook entirely.

Written and recorded over four years in Leeds, not far from where Harrison grew up, Idols is a sprawling album that reimagines what YUNGBLUD can be. He calls it “a project with no limitations,” and it lives up to that promise. Equal parts love letter and liberation anthem, Idols is a brash and deeply personal dive into identity, masculinity, and the madness of modern life, all wrapped in his influences of Britpop, glam rock, and punk.

“This is about reclaiming myself,” Harrison says. “It’s a love letter to rock music. A love letter to life. In all its fucking madness.” It’s also a love letter to the lost art of album-making. Rather than building Idols around hit singles, YUNGBLUD approached the record like a world unto itself, on that’s immersive, expressive, and intensely emotional. “Feeling and world-building” took priority, and the results are evident in tracks like “Hello Heaven, Hello,” “Lovesick Lullaby,” and the snarling “Zombie.”

There’s a deliberate shift here, one that expands the YUNGBLUD universe beyond the punk-rap angst of his earlier work into something more reflective and melodic, with hints of classic Britpop. Think the Verve’s Urban Hymns by way of Camden Town dive bars, with shades of My Chemical Romance’s theatricality and Bowie’s chameleonic vibe. He wears his influences proudly, channeling them into a something that comes across as his own.

But for all the bombast, Idols is also remarkably vulnerable. Harrison explores questions of self-worth, challenges traditional masculinity, and digs deep into identity - not just the performance of it, but the search for its core. “Before we look at others to define who we are, we have to look in,” he explains. If 21st Century Liability was the scream of teenage defiance and Weird! was the coming-of-age chaos, Idols is YUNGBLUD’s “holy sh*t” moment.