Winning '11: 4 - Elbow

Elbow - Build a Rocket Boys!

Time flies and Elbow have been my favourite band for more than a decade now. Take the fact that Guy Garvey has the most amazing voice and that their every note is made to sound completely gorgeous as read for this review, really. This marked the first album of theirs which I approached with anxiety though, being as it was their first after achieving massive commercial success off the back of That Song. It turned out that I needn't have been worried that a whole album of deliberately soundtrack ready anthems was going to emerge to capitalise.

First, if anything Build a Rocket Boys! is the most considered and dense Elbow album since their first, the least concerned with immediate thrills and sing along choruses. It starts off with "The Birds", simultaneously big in musical scale and intimate in its emotions, unfolding in languorous stages. It has a hint of Pulp's We Love Life to its organic portrayal of nature and love but has a mix of romance and realism which is pure Elbow. It has an old man looking back at his life, interspersed with the dismissive interjections of those looking after him. 'What are we going to do with you?... looking back is for the birds', backed up by a puffed-up bass stomp. There's a lot more where that comes from album goes on to meditate on different aspects of memories and the past in every song, always one of my favourite of Guy Garvey's topics and one which once again sees him in evocative and impressive form.

The other thing, though, is that the album does have its own one obvious single, and "Open Arms" is unreservedly fantastic in a way that "One Day Like This" never was. An ode to community that it seemed clear, from the first time I heard it live before the album's release, was seemed destined to bring together its own wherever it went, so utterly welcoming and big-hearted it was. It even reaches out into space in the end - 'The moon is out looking for trouble/The moon wants a scrap or a cuddle/The moon is face down in a puddle/And everyone's here'. There remains no one better to go to for totally endearing and warm poetry on the subject of drink and friendship and nostalgia.