Elbow have subtly reinvented themselves so many instances that they’re now journeying removed from their rocky guitar roots. Their tenth album options effervescent synths, playful orchestrations, African-inspired rhythms and what vocalist Man Garvey has known as “seedy, gnarly grooves”. The notably revolutionary Lovers’ Leap races by way of samba-style percussion, darting strings and a rolling bass line, earlier than an digital glam stomp leads right into a gorgeously Beatles-y coda. The lyrics, in the meantime, are a darkly humorous rumination on how we romanticise tragic youth.
Elsewhere, the playful Balu is pushed by horns and a Wurlitzer-style keyboard melody whereas the extra turbulent Good Blood Mexico Metropolis has one thing of the Nationwide at their most epic and dramatic. Her to the Earth nods to, of all issues, Genesis’s That’s All, however Very Heaven flips the dial once more: it’s some of the wistful, haunting songs they’ve achieved.
Garvey tackles a variety of matters, from the welfare state to reminiscences of teenage wildness, with some razor-sharp writing. On success, he sings: “I haven’t paid for cabs or beers / Or met a cunt in 20 years / Like all that outrun poverty / All I’ve was coming to me.” The very good Knife Battle, in the meantime, relies on an incident he witnessed in a restaurant in Istanbul. The singer is perpetually discovering new methods to make use of his voice. He experiments with texture and even places it by way of a vocoder however, for all Elbow’s adventures, the foundations are nonetheless elegant songwriting, coronary heart and soul.
