Albums Of The Year No. 3

We're nearly there! WOW!

But for now:

3. Elbow- The Seldom Seen Kid



Elbow have never made a bad album. They're one of my favourite bands and I loved each oof their first 3 albums. They always progressed with each one too, taking ever more control of each album to get exactly what they want. The Seldom Seen Kid was in fact entirely recorded, mixed and produced by the band themselves. And it has to be said they've done a sterling job and created what is now probably their best album.

It's quieter than the old Elbow albums, acoustics are more to the fore than ever before and they don't rock out qite so much (the only real exceptions being 'Bones Of You' and 'Grounds For Divorce'), but it's definately the most cohesive Elbow album in terms of overall sound and focus, that being of a generally light and optimistic feel with a more epic edge than usual. This is most obvious on songs like the beautiful 'Loneliness Of A Tower Crane Driver', the lilting 'Weather To Fly' and 'One Day Like This' (yes, that song that has soundtracked virtually everything for the past 7 months).

The band still get their darker side out now and then. 'The Fix' is a duet with Richard Hawley, detailing the sordid affair of fixing a horserace and making off with the winnings, and the superb 'Some Riot', with it's lonely piano and slide guitar, confronts a friend's alcoholism. Closer 'Friend Of Ours' direct address the death of friend 'Bryan Glancy', summing up the emotion with the simple line 'Love you mate'. Short and simple, yet that one line is more heartfelt and thought provoking than virtually any other release this year.

Guy Garvey's lyrics are as fantastic as ever. 'We kiss like we invented it' (from Mirrorball) is a personal favourite of mine, as is the entirity of 'An Audience With The Pope', a song about trying to balance your beliefs with your lust for sex. Guy Garvey does an excellent job on all the tracks, as does the rest of the band. Craig Potters piano lines are lovely and memorable, Mark Potters guitar is used delicately, Pete Turner creates some of this heaviest and melodic bass lines and Richard Jupp shows off his original and inventive drumming throughout. The band have obviously put a lot of heart and soul into the album and created a masterpiece. It was well deserving of winning the Mercury Prize back in September and should finally propel the band to the stardom they've been working 18 years for.