This Week's Singles Reviewed
Hamish MacBain takes on this week's releases. Elbow - 'Lippy Kids' Good on Elbow and all that, but fuck me backwards, their Glasto set was nauseatingly pleasant. This is the one off the new album from which all the gushing reviews have...
This Week's Singles Reviewed - 25/04/11
Elbow - ‘Open Arms’ “THANK YOU COMIC RELIEF FOR SHOWING ME THIS FUCKING SONG/BAND!!!! God this is amazing,” writes one Youtube commenter, and to me, this is the sentiment that binds together all Elbow fans. The mistaken belief that what...
Elbow - Build A Rocket Boys! (Fiction/Polydor)
Specificity in art is a sign of bravery. Anyone who obfuscates what they mean (either for lack of something to say or for fear of being taken to task) is not only a coward but probably not worthy of the tag ‘artist’ in the first place. This is...
Elbow
While Guy Garvey is at pains to remind us all that this gig sold out before his band’s Mercury Prize triumph, their current UK tour is completely coloured by it, giving the dates the air of one long party. It’s a party featuring the most...
Elbow
If 2005’s ‘Leaders Of The Free World’ was Elbow’s on-tour love letter to Manchester, this is the sound of them returning and re-evaluating their relationship with the city. Mancunians have a curiously tempestuous relationship with their...
Elbow
You can pretty much say anything in a Mancunian accent and still sound ridiculously relaxed. Whether trapped in a well or angrily protesting a crossbow injury the likelihood is that you’ll sound like you’re reclining on a lush Caribbean beach....
Elbow
This is the new, classier Elbow,” announces Guy Garvey, surveying his surroundings. We’re at the Porchester Hall – an opulent west London ballroom opened in the reign of George V – to witness his band’s live return, and Manchester’s...
Elbow/The Duke Spirit/¡Forward,...
There may have been a hugely varied array of bands on display at the ShockWaves NME Awards Shows these past two weeks but, really, there’s little doubt that tonight is the king of all diverse bills. Headlined by Guy Garvey and his...
Elbow: Leaders Of The Free World
Elbow ’s Guy Garvey isn’t your average pop star. A romantic grump with the voice of a cherub, he makes no attempt to cover up his thirtysomething years with a fake birth certificate. He doesn’t dance. He barely even shaves. But on the...
Elbow: Asleep In The Back
Hooray! Manchester has delivered its first great album of the millennium. Others will doubtless follow, but few will conjure up magic as brooding as Elbow have here. Peering back through the musical mists of time one can see a thread of...
