Review: Elbow, The Seldom Seen Kid
I have a special fondness for Elbow because, staying at a hotel that reeked of cigarettes in West LA about five years ago, I saw them in the lobby checking in very late, looking exhausted and kind of embarrassed. I picked up Asleep in the Back shortly after that and found a lovely blend of downbeat British indie with slight prog touches, something along the lines of a less-mannered Blue Nile or more subtle Catherine Wheel. Subsequent releases have been a mixed bag for me; I loved some songs, disliked others; "Switching Off" in particular seemed destined for a love scene in a Richard Curtis comedy if a comparable Coldplay song turned out to be too expensive; good, you know, just not very original.

The Seldom Seen Kid is a huge improvement over the last two albums. The songs just stick in memory better. "Mirrorball" rolls on a machinistic steady rhythm and delicate arpeggios. Guy Garvey used to have a slight self-conscious Peter Gabriel affectation to his voice, but it's smoothed out and his enunciation has improved; maybe it's just because they're so far into their career or I've just gotten used to him, but he finally sounds like himself. "The Fix Is In", a duet with Richard Hawley, waltzes onto the album out of some black and white noir-musical. The piano and tambourine riff that opens "Audience With the Pope" and the percussion on "Weather to Fly" recall the subtle touches that latter-era Talk Talk excelled at (Elbow have often garnered Talk Talk comparisons -- to their detriment, I think, because gravelly voice aside, they usually sound nothing alike; but these elements make good on those critically promised similarities).

Some mention has been made that this album was mixed and mastered with particular attention to dynamics in opposition to the loudness war, but the opening scrawl of static seems intended to make you turn your stereo down rather than up. That aside, there is a far amount of variation in volume on this album and it never sounds fatiguing. A song like "Some Riot" was carefully mixed for a nice stereo system or headphone listening, paying particular attention to the soundstage and levels on the instrumentation: muted piano, delicately picked guitar, and a distant, surging cello that rises and falls in volume behind Garvey's voice. "A Friend of Ours", the album's final track, in memory of departed Manchester musician Bryan Glancy, is a tribute of real beauty with a lovely, understated piano riff that takes the album out on a quiet note of restraint.

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