Elbow - Little Fictions

Drowned In Sound 80

Some people think Elbow are boring. Those people have no hot soup in their veins, and I pity them.

Which is a roundabout way of saying that there’s a new Elbow record out, and that’s a special thing. It’s time to heat the soup again.

Little Fictions, their seventh, is, reliably, a very good Elbow album. There’s no great fucking with formula here, if you found Elbow boring before (because you have no joy inside you) there’s little here to convince you. But oh my gosh, those elements that work for them so well are here in abundance - the playful, off-kilter beats (despite the departure of drummer Richard Jupp), the dips from melancholic to uplifting, the dripping strings, and half-built basslines. Above that, defining and controlling it, Garvey’s voice is warmth itself, unshowy, deceptively versatile and carrying human joy and sadness like an empathic mikman. Garvey is, as always, concerning himself with the celebration of commonality, from ‘Magnificent (She Says)’s joy in a little girl playing on a beach to the simple exclamation of “your heart could easily power three of me” in ‘Montparnesse’ (”Don’t talk like we’re stuck in a life” might be one of his finest lines).;

The title track displays the band’s knack for creating textures that might feel odd in other hands and wrapping them in a warmth that feels anthemic. On ‘K2’ Garvey bares his teeth over Brexit (”I’m from a land with an island status, make us think that everyone hates us”) but still manages to imbue it with positivity (“but they’ve never met you”) over a clattering and shimmering backdrop; while the closing ‘Kindling’ is built round a drum loop that drips humanity and builds and swells into, well, the soul-warming, heart-squeezing appropriate end of an Elbow album. An institution worthy of national heritage status. A dose of humanity in inhuman times.

The Guardian 80

(Polydor)

The upturn in Guy Garvey’s romantic fortunes, alluded to on his 2015 solo debut Courting the Squall, proved to be his relationship with the actor Rachael Stirling. Having married her last year, the mood on his band’s first album in three years is even more explicitly joyful. The gorgeous Trust the Sun, in particular, is the sound of a man hopelessly in love (“You’re my reason for breathing”), and an air of unconfined happiness permeates several other songs (although there’s an uneasy nod to Brexit on K2). And while this seventh album continues the band’s slow move away from the anthemic drama of The Seldom Seen Kid, there’s a richness of ideas here that rewards repeated listening.

The Guardian 80

(Polydor)

After Elbow’s 2014 The Take Off and Landing of Everything, singer Guy Garvey got married and drummer Richard Jupp left the band after 25 years. Such developments give their seventh album a mild air of reinvention. Songs are built around loops or percussive pianos; electric guitar motifs replace strummed acoustics and Garvey is audibly a man in love, although the results are more uplifting than gooey. With the big man’s vocals at his most crooning and elegiac, Magnificent (She Says) and the lovely Gentle Storm revel in a joyous intimacy, although the Hallé Orchestra and two voice choirs are on hand for the trademarked epic moments. And alongside the usual themes of community, love, solidarity and concern, there’s something of a new swing. Indeed, K2 (“I’m from a land with an island status / Makes us think everyone hates us”) brings a motorik groove to Brexit Britain, on as fine an album as Elbow have ever made.