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Music : The Seldom Seen Kidby: Elbow
Disc 1:
Editorial Review: Amazon.co.uk Review: There are few things in life quite so liberating as the opening track on an Elbow album--they're like airlocks between the plainness of the outside world and the elaborate melancholic heave-ho that you are likely about to submerge yourself in. Following predecessors "Any Day Now", "Ribcage" and "Station Approach", "Starlings" opens their fourth album The Seldom Seen Kid rising from a bed of tumbling electronic subtlety like a depressed Atari game loading up, adding bare touches of piano, glimpses of ambient guitar, out of body background vocals, an understated pulse and a wisp of strings, before--EXCELSIS!--a fanfare avalanche of horns crashes the gate and elevates things to gasping palatial heights, before Guy Garvey's inimitable gravel tone and wrenchingly poetic reinterpretations of the everyday announce their arrival proper. It's astonishing, by far the most progressive moment on the album and if anything it sets the bar too high. But even when the pace dips, and songs like "Mirrorball" and "Weather to Fly" don't distinguish themselves quite enough, their textural peerlessness remains. This is a beautiful sounding record. Their collaboration with Richard Hawley may be more of a curiosity than a thing of beauty, but the highs, the riffing cross-stitch of "Ground for Divorce", the desolate grandeur of "The Loneliness of a Tower Crane Driver" and the enlightened string-laden anthem "On a Day Like This" (like their own Sound of Music--only substitute the Alpine peaks for a Manchester high-rise) number amongst the best of their career. --James Berry Average Rating:
 Rating:  - Bliss!I have Amazon to thank for bringing Elbow to my attention many years ago. I bought some CD or other and they did their cheeky "if you like that, you might like this ..." and recommended Elbow's debut album Asleep in the Back. I did something I have never done before or since and bought the CD without hearing a note just because I liked their name. And I loved the CD. I then bought Cast of Thousands - Grace Under Pressure is sublime - and Leaders of the Free World and really enjoyed both. Seldom ... Read More Rating: - Simply a great album.I was recommended this by a chap who went to school with Guy Garvey. He couldn't praise it enough, although I did wonder how partisan he was...Then I heard "Grounds for Divorce" on Radcliffe and Maconie and that was it. Very glad I bought it too, as it's now my favourite album of the year, by far. If it's true that their old record company passed on this, then they must be feeling pretty sick now. The music is gorgeous,finely wrought stuff from a band that have grown together ... Read More Rating: - The Best of BritishElbow have what it takes to become one of the biggest bands for some time. Few bands have all the ingredients but Elbow do, the biggest being the lyrics of Guy Garvey and that voice, that delivery. They probably shouldn't have opened this album with 'Starlings' as it is impossible to get better than this I feel, after lonely piano, trumpets, backgrond vocals Garvey steps to the fore delivering lyrics so simple but so touching, this is why this man is a poet 'you are ... Read More Rating:  - Joint painI know it's heretical, and I'll probably end up with about 100 unhelpful votes, but I do wonder whether Elbow are really that good. Admittedly this record is better than their debut, but it still contains too much in the way of sludgy, overlong, beery blokishness. In the same way that Dizzee Rascal's Mercury was an attempt by the white middle-class music industry to get down with the urban kids, so Elbow's is a patronising nod to a 'rather charming' Simon Armitage-ish North by the metropolitan media. Frankly, ... Read More Rating: - MarvellousElbow have been floating around on the edge of my musical world for some time now. An occasional track would appear on some free CD given away by a music magazine and I'd make a mental note to investigate them at some point in the future, but never did. Then I heard 'Grounds for Divorce' on another free CD and immediately looked to see who it was. So I bought the album. And it's absolutely superb, feeling like a 'complete' album, where every track fits into place. I can't see this being beaten as my favourite ... Read More Browse for similar items by category:
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