Elbow:
The Take Off And Landing Of Everything:
Fiction:
CD/Download/Vinyl:
Out Now:
★★★★★★★☆☆☆
Clocks tick, seasons pass by and Guy Garvey's faintly husky burr resonates throughout Elbow's long-awaited sixth opus like the purr of a well-oiled steam engine. There's no stopping Elbow - they're like the British Pullman of bands, earnestly pulling their followers along behind them, rarely changing track and stopping pretty much anywhere en route to pick up interested parties. As long as Garvey's songs fuel the tender, Elbow's locomotive will charge forth, garnering awards and selling loads.
Not surprisingly, The Take Off lives up to its grand title with a mixture of joyful, hopeful anthems and sullen, sad-face balladeering that cover most bases - heartache, heartbreak and heartfelt storytelling par excellence - life, in all but name. As usual, no Elbow long-player would be complete without a long drawn-out opener and album six is no exception as This Blue World opens the door gradually to allow a peek at the treasures within. There's the righteously grumpy Charge with the quotable couplet "...Glory be/These fuckers are ignoring me/We never learn from history...." and a jaunty (for Elbow) shuffle up and down the musical scales in the jazzy Fly Boy Blue/Lunette.
By now you'll have heard the familiar New York Morning, a sort of wide-eyed variant of Mirrorball or The Birds, which is a similar deja vu feeling I get from the next portion of the album, that is until the sprawling title-track and its languid bed-fellow, the closing The Blanket Of Night, both prime examples of what Elbow do best - they may take ages to say it, but say it well they certainly do. And I love My Sad Captains, the album's homage to the demise of drinking partners, apparently suggested by Garvey's former girlfriend (text from Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra). "What a perfect waste of time", indeed.
Perhaps not as hook-laden or lyrically absorbing as The Seldom Seen Kid or as majestic as some of Build A Rocket Boys, 2014's The Take Off represents a pivotal point in the life of Elbow in that it sounds like a re-charging of batteries, more than a giant leap forward. And there's nothing wrong with that when it comes to Garvey's charges.
The Take Off And Landing Of Everything:
Fiction:
CD/Download/Vinyl:
Out Now:
★★★★★★★☆☆☆
Not surprisingly, The Take Off lives up to its grand title with a mixture of joyful, hopeful anthems and sullen, sad-face balladeering that cover most bases - heartache, heartbreak and heartfelt storytelling par excellence - life, in all but name. As usual, no Elbow long-player would be complete without a long drawn-out opener and album six is no exception as This Blue World opens the door gradually to allow a peek at the treasures within. There's the righteously grumpy Charge with the quotable couplet "...Glory be/These fuckers are ignoring me/We never learn from history...." and a jaunty (for Elbow) shuffle up and down the musical scales in the jazzy Fly Boy Blue/Lunette.
By now you'll have heard the familiar New York Morning, a sort of wide-eyed variant of Mirrorball or The Birds, which is a similar deja vu feeling I get from the next portion of the album, that is until the sprawling title-track and its languid bed-fellow, the closing The Blanket Of Night, both prime examples of what Elbow do best - they may take ages to say it, but say it well they certainly do. And I love My Sad Captains, the album's homage to the demise of drinking partners, apparently suggested by Garvey's former girlfriend (text from Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra). "What a perfect waste of time", indeed.
Perhaps not as hook-laden or lyrically absorbing as The Seldom Seen Kid or as majestic as some of Build A Rocket Boys, 2014's The Take Off represents a pivotal point in the life of Elbow in that it sounds like a re-charging of batteries, more than a giant leap forward. And there's nothing wrong with that when it comes to Garvey's charges.
