ELBOW RELEASE NEW ALBUM
PERFORM AT COACHELLA + GLASTONBURY
- D. PAINTER
Who are the best British band of the past decade? If you said Coldplay you are probably an American. A self described “album band”, Elbow have yet to drop a singles that has broken through in the states but in the era of buy-by-the-song downloading it is essential to have a group that believe in the impact of a collection of tracks to tell a tale or define a space, either physical or emotional. With their latest and 5th release, Build A Rocket Boys!, the band (headed by Guy Garvey) build on the themes of their youth. I’ve always said that Sting should give up recording and write for an indie band. This is that album. Imagine if Coldplay recorded a whole album of Sting’s material. Lyrics that tell stories while waxing poetic across atmospheric musical backdrops that conjure memories even in the moments where words aren’t present.
The album begins with “The Birds” a break up tale sung hauntingly as if it were part of a Catholic mass but the organist has been replaced by a rock band. Always smart and cryptic, Guy tells of how the birds are the only ones to witness him and his lovers final moments but realizes that when it comes to a past relationship “looking back is for the birds”. On an album that is fairly mellow, one song that attempts to rock is “Neat Little rows” which brings a lot more attitude to the table than the rest of the bunch. My Sting-by-Coldplay analogy can best be proved with a listen to “Lippy Kids” and “High Ideals”. “Ideals” feels like the backdrop to a scene in which a man is searching the dessert for something lost. Lines like “There’s a ladder’s tear in my high ideals” and “There’s a bayonnette in my family things” begin both verses in a melody reminiscent of the Police’s “King Of Pain”. Don't get me wrong, these pieces are by no means derivative, simply reminiscent in the intricacy of their arrangements and melodies.
Hands down, the most affecting song of the album is “Lippy Kids” from which the title was taken (scroll down to watch the video). Guy has masterfully made a modern day hymn that pays homage to the golden days of being a bad kid on the block. Even if this was not your childhood, while listening you will feel as though you lived it. “Lippy kids on the corner again, settling like crows, though I never perfected the simian stroll, the cigarette senate was everything then”. The hook tells those kids how precious those moments on the curb with your friends are. One can argue that his cry to “build a rocket boys!” is his advice to keep living that moment to the limit as he returns home years later as a grown man in that “one long June”.
Stories of lost love and lost youth are not lost on the listener. We Yanks may not hear any of these songs on the radio but we may see them at the Grammy's. Music is meant to transport us, and Build A Rocket Boys! Is stellar in accomplishing that.
ELBOW BUILD A ROCKET BOYS! AVAILABLE TODAY IN STORES AND ONLINE RETAILERS
CATCH THEM LIVE AT THE 2011 COACHELLA FESTIVAL THIS WEEK ON SATURDAY, APRIL 16TH
Also at THE 2011 Glastonbury Festival OPENING FOR U2 June 24th in Glastonbury, England
"LIPPY KIDS" LIVE @ BLUEPRINT STUDIOS