Product Description

Epic post-rock tinged emotional indie stalwarts Elbow release their fourth album 'The Seldom Seen Kid', another staunchand anthemic collection of songs. The tense and emotional sound of previous records remains, but with a distinctly morecommercial riff-based template, particularly on lead single'Grounds For Divorce'. The band produced the record themselves, as with previous records, lending it a homespun qualitythat would be out of synch with any external influence. Revered by their peers as a reliably independent act, Elbow have created a subtly innovative extension of their sound and scope with 'The Seldom Seen Kid'.

Track Listing

1. Starlings
2. The Bones Of You
3. Mirrorball
4. Grounds For Divorce
5. An Audience With The Pope
6. Weather To Fly
7. The Loneliness of a Tower Crane Driver
8. The Fix - Elbow, Richard Hawley
9. Some Riot
10. One Day Like This
11. Friend Of Ours
12. We're Away

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #49 in Music
• Released on: 2008-03-17
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 56 minutes

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

Customer Reviews

Very disapointed
bought this album on the streangth of hearing the single ( last track on album ) and I have to say how disapointed I was with the reat of the album, only buy this cd if your a fan of the group themselves

My faith firmly restored in the British public - give yourself a pat on the back
Both the huge support/acclaim for this album and the John Sergeant affair are proof that we should never underestimate our enduring ability to occasionally do the right thing. Elbow are a great band. Never fashionable, no gimmicks, not much fuss but always able to create great music. All their albums are streeta aheads of the wretched Keane, Snow Patrol and Razorlight. Here they move into overdrive. Some of the most wonderful songs ever recorded by a British band are contained on this CD. Weather to Fly had me weeping like a professional onion peeler; Mirroball is very powerful & romantic with superb lyrics

"We took the town to town last night.
We kissed like we invented it!
And now I know what every step is for:
To lead me to your door".

Then you have On days like this, Grounds for Divorce and the lovely "Friends of ours" which is a superb closer. I was so chuffed when they won the Mercury award. Their delight and response was a joy. None of this "we are great artists and to good for awards" or "too hip to pretend that we really do care". Its been a long road for them to travel and Guy Garvey's reaction was genuine and honest just like their music.

A plea. Buy it for Christmas for every member of your family, give it to your friends, play it to the cat, send multiple copies to that idiot Simon Cowell and make him have Elbow night on the X Factor. Better still take that rubbish of the TV for a week and give the stage to Elbow. Make it the Christmas No 1 album, give a knighthood to each band member......I'm going for a lie down now

The Seldom Seen Kid
I bought this album after hearing them live on Colin Murray's show. They played some songs live, and they were so different to anything I really listened to. Instantly loving the songs 'Grounds For Divorce' and 'One Day Like This', I decided to purchase the album. The music they make is so chilled and calmed but sounds so good! I find this very good to listen to when I revise as I am a student. The album as is nothing dramatic, but rather calm and soothing. Some of the lyrics are very clever and catchy: I can't help loving every song.

For £7 this album is a bargain, and no wonder it has so many ratings!!!