James Arden checks out the garage rockers latest album.
The Christian rock band from Brighton bring religion to the masses.
Recipe for modern R'n'B album: liberal helpings of guest rappers and an overdose of sexual euphemisms.
Has it really been three years since the release of Elbow’s The Seldom Seen Kid? Since winning the Mercury Prize in 2008 and (finally) being bombarded with media attention, the band has been busy. As well as playing sell-out stadium tours and presenting radio shows, they’ve also been working on their fifth album Build A Rocket Boys! Given the success of their previous album, it’s difficult not to compare the two, as most bands would now be pandering to the needs of their newfound mainstream audience. But if there’s any band to buck the trend, it’s Elbow, and they’ve returned with a collection of songs that have an evident theme of memories, friendship and childhood.
Never ones to rush anything, Elbow open their album with ‘The Birds’ – a slow builder, as you would expect for a song eight minutes long. Guy Garvey’s mesmerising vocal harmonies are layered over a bluesy bass loop for several minutes before the song crescendos and explodes into a string-saturated chorus.
Childhood is a major theme in ‘Lippy Kids’, which contains the lyrics ‘Build a rocket boys!’ and comes with snippets of whistling and carefully placed kick drums. This is a more solemn, gentle song, suggesting that ‘Build a Rocket Boys’ won’t be full of the glossy, radio-friendly tunes that filled their last album, which certainly isn’t a bad thing. Saying that, ‘With Love’ and ‘Neat Little Rows’ are much more light-hearted, the former incorporating bursts of choir, handclaps and other instruments that I can’t even recognise. Is it a guitar? Is it a piano? Some sort of harp-y thing? There’s a great amount of experimentation with musical texture going on here, as the instrumental sparseness of ‘With Love’ contrasts with ‘Neat Little Rows,’ which is brimming with hooks, riffs and beats.
From here, the album takes a melancholy turn, to the point where the songs are more noticeably poetry with minimal musical support. ‘Jesus is a Rochdale Girl’ lists mundane items that hold significance: ‘I celebrate and mourn… a single yellow duvet/ a single switch to flick,’ whilst ‘The Night Will Always Win’ and ‘The River’ are almost lullabies, stripped of drums, bass and guitar to be left with voice and piano. Fortunately, despite some slightly strained high notes, the vocal quality is so appealing that the songs can be simple and beautiful without becoming boring.
The penultimate song, ‘The Birds (reprise)’, is more of a poetic interlude. The lyrics of the opening track are sung/read by – according to the CD insert – a 68 year-old chap called John Mosley, who’s an ex-piano tuner and professional actor. Hm. Depending on your viewpoint, this is either a tad pretentious, or deeply meaningful. I think it’s actually quite sweet and works well with the album as a whole. It certainly adds to the feeling that this is an album for lazy Sunday afternoons.
In short, for those who enjoyed the anthems and the more guitar-heavy hits of previous albums, ‘Build A Rocket Boys!’ may take longer to warm to, whereas hardcore Elbow fans probably won’t be disappointed. There are ballads, as always, but the real strength of this album is the lyrical content and a powerful ability to control emotions with music. Elbow are the masters of song-writing and well-crafted instrumentation and it would be nice to see more bands follow their lead.
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