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: #21 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

Words, word, words...
...like water shouldn't be squandered so I'll keep it brief.

The least good album by a marvellous band whose output gradually returns less and less impact (listen to this alongside Asleep At The Back with decent ears and you'll know what I'm bleating about)...

...but despite this, a slightly diminished Elbow record rains filth from serious altitude all over any band they might be compared to. Why they aren't outselling Coldplay's brand of bland public school nyamming ennui by 10 to 1 is one of those anomalies you can only put down to the cloth-eared idiocy of Joe and Jenny Public.

Mirrorball, Starlings, The Bones of You, Weather To Fly all have the melodic and emotional clout to cast the ironically named Gary Lightbody's piffling efforts with Snow Patrol in a light that renders him a small kid mithering on about not getting his 10p mix from the local corner shop in comparison.

In summary: not their best but still better than everyone else doing this by many a country mile.

Heavenly...
With "The Seldom Seen Kid" Elbow continue their healthy track record of making wonderfully emotive music coupled with quite appalling sleeve art. Guy Garvey's voice still continues to pierce right through the heart with that heavenly falsetto he occasionally wields (that presumably umpteen cigarettes cannot dent). Almost irrespective of what he is singing about it all sounds utterly gorgeous.

This album, perhaps more so than the others, is not initially quite as immediate. I've found it doesn't work quite as well as a casual listen either. Given it's structure, and the lengthy running time of a couple of tunes, it feels like more time is needed to sit and just digest the whole thing. In other words, apply a little patience and you'll be rewarded.

Countless other bands, with much higher profiles, have struggled to make valuable, important music album after album - but Elbow continue to do it with ease. This is lovely stuff.

This Is Beautiful.
4.5 stars actually. 5 if slightly more ambitious. For example, the long ending of One Day Like This sounds too formulaic. (Like Paul McCartney?)But anyway, it's the most beautiful album in a few years, which makes me to write the first album review in a few years.
It is a great wonder how something that reminds me of Coldplay can still sound distinguished from Coldplay. Does this mean Coldplay could have been a much better band than now??