Elbow: Dead in the boot
After the release of probably the most high-profile track they will ever make in First Steps, the theme for the BBC’s London 2012 coverage, Elbow return with a smattering of their B-Sides for our listening pleasure.
And as always, we are in for a treat.
The album as a whole feels more relaxed than most of their previous work. These songs aren’t meant to be the anthems we expect of Elbow but a look inside at the band’s inner workings, their creative soul. A lot of the tracks have an incredibly reflective feeling to them, ‘None one’ being especially poignant.
But listening to this work makes me look at Elbow slightly differently. The mainstay of their work are actually these beautiful miniatures, written by themselves for themselves. The by-product of this writing are tracks like One Day Like This, First Steps and Grounds for Divorce.
The uplifting, lilting feel of ‘Gentle As’ gives a nice contrast and a beautiful close to the album, but its sheer reflectiveness and movie-credits quality leaves me wondering if Elbow will return in their current form, or take a new direction entirely.
Elbow’s charm, success and outright Britishness is born from the tracks on this album, which in my books makes it a must-buy.
About the Author
Geoff Janes Geoffrey Janes is a freelance creative, specialising in Music, Photography and of course writing. He is a graduate of a Music Conservatoire with an extraordinarily long name and amongst his interests lies a strong love for technology as-well as a lifetime affinity for Arsenal.
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