Track Listing

1. Ribcage
2. Fallen Angel
3. Fugitive Motel
4. Snooks (Progress Report)
5. Switching Off
6. Not A Job
7. I've Got Your Number
8. Buttons And Zips
9. Crawling With Idiot
10. Grace Under Pressure
11. Flying Dream

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #214 in Music
• Released on: 2006-07-01
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .21 pounds
• Running time: 50 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
An astonishingly intense and ambitious album, Elbow's Cast of Thousands is relentlessly experimental. Having toiled for 10 years over their spellbinding Mercury-nominated debut Asleep in the Back, the maverick Bury five-piece--who were initially hailed as the new Radiohead--have produced a worthy sequel in a comparatively short two years. While mirroring their debut's melancholy tone, this album's romantic lyricism and uplifting harmonies inject a fresh dynamic.

From the first bar, Cast of Thousands is enthralling. "Ribcage", an exquisite rousing treasure, builds on a languorous and fragmented melody into a cohesive climax while Garvey listlessly intones (with a flat mic taped to his larynx) the charming mantra, "When the sunshine/ throwing me a lifeline/ finds its way in to my room/ all I need is you". Meanwhile, the London Community Gospel choir's spiralling harmonies echo Blur's "Tender" in its lo-fi, mellifluous majesty. But the majority of the album is far less grandiose with the haunting "Snooks (Progress Report)" and "I've Got Your Number" bristling with an unnerving intimacy and brooding dialogue. It's an enchanting return that finds Elbow stretching from despair to lovelorn tenderness. --Christopher Barrett

CD Description
Second album from Bury indie band Elbow and the follow-up to their critically acclaimed debut 'Asleep In The Back', which was released in 2001. A brooding melancholic indie rock band, who have drawn comparisons to Radiohead and who's influences range from Jeff Buckley through to Peter Gabriel. Includes the lead single 'Fallen Angel'.

Customer Reviews

Elbow show they have grace under pressure
After Asleep in the Back, an album that took years to create and release, Elbow must have felt the strain when asked to make a follow-up in a much shorter timespace. However, the pressure seems to have worked well as they have made a brilliant second album that shows just how talented these guys are.

The great thing about this album is its layers: Elbow really have a thing for attention to detail. All the tracks add layer upon layer to create amazing soundscape-like masterpieces that are at once catchy and melodic.

The experimentalism on this album is also catchy. Everything from the offbeat, sometimes jazzy sometimes just odd drumming to the quiet piano, repetitive guitar sounds, melodic offbeat bass and giant gospel choirs just seems to work well together. This is partly due to great production by Ben Hillier & Elbow and partly due to the band's creativity. The good thing too is that the album still retains the dark, melancholy feel of the first album; it just achieves it in slightly different ways. This experimental feel just blows other bands out of the water.

But it's not just the music that's great. The lyrics are what make the music still feel human. Guy Garvey adds wit and romanticism to every song, and his Peter Gabriel-like voice just adds to this feel. "Lost in a lullaby, side of the road, melt in a melody, slide in a solitude". Beautiful.

Some people say this album is more uplifting than the last, and, while that is true to an extent, the constant darkness of the first album is still here which is what I love. You just love the fact that the band are moody and unhappy, and they can't get enough of it themselves either. That's what makes this album work.

So, in conclusion: great layered structure, unusual musicianship, brilliant lyricism, great production, curiously unhappy but uplifting feel... what more do you want? These guys are the future of rock music, so buy them now. And congrats to Elbow for making such an amazing record in a much shorter space of time.

Two or three listens and you will love this record.
This album is everything i hoped for and more from the follow-up to 'Asleep in the Back.' The first thing that struck me was that it didn't really have any obviously "stand-out" tracks such as 'Newborn' and 'Red' on Asleep in the Back. However, after a few listens the album and certain songs in particular started to seep inside my head and this album overall is a more complete, more subtle and better sewn together piece of work than Elbow's excellent debut. The DVD is also very good and easy to watch all the way through unlike other DVD albums i own, which really do require a great deal of patience to watch. Magnificent.

Don't be mistaken, it's a brilliant album
What ever happened to the 'notoriously difficult' second album that bands usually fell down on? A myth to suit yesterday's bands me thinks. Nowadays the 2nd album brings maturity, progression, and such and such. Coldplay did it with Rush of Blood..., Doves did it with The Last Broadcast, and now I'm very happy to annouce that Elbow have done it too with Cast of Thousands.

Their debut album, Asleep at the Back was definately an album to play late at night when you want to get your emotion on. Powder Blue and Newborn were made to pull on those little heart strings that we all seem to possess deep down. It was an album full of epic, emotion driven songs that we all fell in love with.

Cast of Thousands is more subtle. For those of you who have bought it on the back of Fallen Angel or Asleep at the back (album), played it once, and shelved it to the 'will never play again unless i'm dead bored' part of your CD collection, believe me, you are missing out on a gem.

It is an album that has to be played 7 or 8 times before you can even start to comprehend it's magic. OK, it has its catchy tunes like the 'Fallen Angel' and 'Buttons and Zips' (There is almost a 'The Chicken or the Egg' paradox behind the chorus "Will I ever get this song off my lips, thats what you said"), but after a few more plays, you start to get hooked on songs like 'Fugative Motel' and 'Not a Job', and realise this is probably the best stuff you've heard since OK computer was around.

'Switching Off' is this albums Newborn, the almost naked voice of Guy Garvey has never sounded as good. This guy really means what he's singing, it obvious isn't it? It's coming from his soul. You don't hear that sort of emotion in voices coming out of the kids on the millions of manufactured bands we seemed to be bludgeoned with. But don't worry Mr Garvey, you are making sense to me, and I know exactly what you are trying to say.

Other highlights of the album include the spiritulised-esque 'Ribcage', the devilishly delightful 'I've got your number', with the dirtiest organ you will ever hear. 'Grace Under Pressure' is another Newborn-type epic, with a little help from a certain glastonbury crowd.

This is definately an album worth buying. It's full of soul, magic, raw emotional power. Well down Elbow for making another superb album.

We still believe in love.