Talk about a good week for collaborations! The whole world and his dog knows about the Feist performance on Letterman but check this out… Bat For Lashes, Fionn Regan and Maps performing one of the pinnacle tracks of the 90’s. No, it’s not Achy Breaky Heart (though I would pay cash money to see that) it is infact Higher Than The Sun by Primal Scream. Nice.

The trio got together via Radio 1 DJ Colin Murray’s radio show “In The Company Of” and recorded the song at London’s Maida Vale studios. All three of the acts are up for this years Mercury Music Prize, and as well as recording their own tracks at the studio, they chose to record Higher Than The Sun from the 1992 Mercury winning album Screamadelica.

Good isn’t it? To see more pictures from the day and to hear the show in full click here.

Together for less than two years, and about to embark on a US tour with fellow Atlanta residents Annuals, the Manchester Orchestra deliver their debut album following a lone EP in 2005. Undisputed guiding light, singer and songwriter Andy Hull spent his last year of school age being home educated in order to concentrate on his writing and recording. Free from the distractions of cheerleaders, all those long corridors lined with lockers, inspirational and unfeasibly good looking teachers, and such. Well, it would appear he still, just about, got a straight A in English. There’s a maturity and interest in the writing on offer here. The music, however, is more uneven, and often detracts rather than complements.

Wolves At Night kicks things off with an attention grabbing intro of off-kilter clattering drums over scratchy guitar and Vincent Price organ. A verse progresses encouragingly but then, as all too often, songs are marred by climactic choruses that wallow in lazy crashing cymbal and power guitar - not quite Orson/Busted territory, but getting there. It’s a formula that repeats. Songs such as The Neighborhood Is Bleeding and I Can Barely Breathe are constructed with faint echoes of Death Cab For Cutie in style and vocals. The pattern is broken by fourth track I Can Feel Your Pain - a whispered contemplative solo over acoustic guitar that alone summons up some sense of origin from the South. There’s a short, similar, attempt later that is less successful.

Where Have You Been finally presses all the right buttons, the question being addressed to that most elusive of emotions: joy, wailed over a pow-wow drum and subdued multi-layered choral backing. Regrettably we’re back to the formula for the following number, but Sleeper 1972 (one of a couple of nods to Woody Allen by Hull) is the emotional fulcrum of the album. Opening with “When my Dad died, the worms they ate out both his eyes”, funereal organ meanders throughout beneath spiritual lyrics. Golden Ticket has chiming Snow Patrol guitar breaks segregating plaintive verses, while elongated closer Colly Strings has the album’s most powerful vocals delivered across sullen drums exploding into a bombastic massed guitar finale that ultimately fails to maintain emotional intensity.

Maybe I’m old school in believing that the music should do the talking, but I am put off by any band actively advertising for street team members on their web site. Hull says that “The concept of the record is sort of my loss… My realization that I don’t have control over anything. And that’s a good thing.” Well, it’s not a good thing if the marketing men have got some musical control and are pressing for the forays into the commercial routine that hamstring this album. He continues “The last line of the song [Colly Strings] is ‘You can’t believe without bleeding.’ For me that stands really true. It’s like you can’t understand life without having to fall and fail. I think that I’m doing something right and have a good concept on the world and I’ll fall again and realize I didn’t know what the hell I was talking about”. With an average age of 19, time is definitely on their side and there’s room for optimism. It’s a first album shy of enough to leave them with heads raised above the indie masses right now, but don’t rule it out for the future.
63%

Links
Manchester Orchestra [official site] [myspace]

I have never been able to understand what people see in the wailing vocals of Mariah Carey, what is so impressive about having a five octave vocal range when the end result is painful on the ears and devoid of any character and emotion. Give me the vocals of Emma Pollock any day, a voice where tricks and soaring registers are entirely absent. As a member of The Delgados, she brought such feeling to her songs, so that you really felt that the lyrics meant something to her. Her performance on Pull The Wires From the Wall is, in my mind, her greatest, a dragging sadness in the melody set against a stark background, never finding the need to yelp and groan like other female vocalists. Her voice is never plain, her vocals never dull - she somehow manages to fill the songs with expression whilst never resorting to dramatics.

Now a solo artist, her debut release Adrenaline was somewhat of a disappointment, a repetitively thumping piano stalling the song at any occasion where it started to get interesting. Thankfully, her second single Acid Test is a vast improvement, more in the spirit of her old band, a cross between the precision of Peloton and the more raucous sound of their debut. Breathy backing vocals unite with her own on the chorus, chiming guitars leading the song nicely back into the bridge.

Also good is A Temporary Fix, a more sedate affair at first with picked guitars and a single note piano. Her voice sounds more “folk” than usual, before the song rises into a collision of ideas towards the powerful end. Her debut album Watch the Fireworks is due out in the Autumn, and on the strength of this material looks like being something quite special.
80%

Links
Emma Pollock [official site] [myspace]

Ok, so we were late to the party and didn’t post the news about the new Band Of Horses track Is There A Ghost being available to download from the bands myspace page. But get this, we’ve just heard the album in full and let me tell you, its a corker.

A beautiful transistion from Everything All The Time. The sound is still very much Band of Horses but it’s harder, more joyful and downright awe inspiring. Stand out tracks so far are Islands on the Coast, Ode To LRC and The General Specific.

We’ve heard it at TLOBF a whole host of times now and we’re still shaking from the excitment. Yes, we might be sad but when the tunes are this lovely, there’s nothing else to do.

EDIT: Ok, so having played this a hell of a lot more since our original post, we can now safely say this is going to be one of the years best releases. The reverb-drenched vocals work their way into your head. The beautiful love song that is No One’s Going To Love You pulls at each and every one of your heart strings. There’s plenty of uptempo moments, but they’ve not lost sight of their sensitive side. Detlef Schrempf is a delicate song, scattered drums play around a simple guitar with Ben crooning “I wouldn’t love you any other way”. Yet the intro to Cigarettes, Wedding Bands crashes like a thunder storm, the guitars swirling around the vocals creating an atmosphere that suggests a dark melancholy just bubbling under the surface…

Combinations is the second album from siblings-and-cousins Texan combo Eisley. The three female members all contribute vocals and produce, in general, a lush, rich harmonious noise between them. Judging by their performance at this year’s Reading Festival, it seems that their full sound is, indeed, organic, and not a product of studio tinkering – they managed to replicate it impressively when singing/playing live.

There’s a quite pronounced 70s vibe to proceedings, often sounding folky, on, for example, the portentous opener Many Funerals, or the soft rock Taking Control, which sounds a bit Stevie-Nicks-era-Fleetwood Mac, or even quite countrified – witness the steel guitar sounds on Golly Sandra.

The strength of this album is undoubtedly in the singing. On tracks like Taking Control, Go Away and Golly Sandra they’ve a lovely way of overlapping and melding the vocals together – sort of as if they were singing a “round” - that works really well. There’s an change in utiliation of their voices too. From using a single singing voice, on title track Combinations, to using three-part harmonies. The downside of this, perhaps, is that all three singers sound pretty much indistinguishable from each other, which can leave the listener occasionally craving a bit more variety.

The best tracks are Invasion (possibly written about the US TV programme of the same name?), which nicely produces a sense of impending doom, Go Away where a sense of regretful melancholia is successfully conveyed by both the lyrics and the accompanying wistful-sounding melody, and the aforementioned Combinations.

Lyrically, however, they often frustrate. The more straightforward tracks work best, but on rather more of the songs than not, the lyrics are opaque to the point of incoherence, with the occasional non-sequitur thrown in. A good example is in Ten Cent Blues where they sing, confusingly, about how “my stilts, they began cracking, subsequently pushed”, although they also use this lovely (and successfully) description of one character: “she’s such a mouse/with such an abstract grace”. Similar problems in Come Clean and Marvellous Things (“Oh what marvellous things/But they are, they are, they are, they are, giving me the creeps”) prevent one from ever getting a clear handle on what the songs are really about, or even what mood they are trying to convey. This is a pity, and prevents the listener from wholeheartedly engaging with them.

Overall then this is probably one to recommend for those of you who are more interested in how an album sounds than what it says, and who like their music sweet and tuneful. It’s hard to shake off a feeling that a bit more grit to the sound, and a bit more meaning to the words, could have produced a work of much more depth and enduring interest.
61%

Links
Eisley [official site] [myspace]

Due to overwhelming demand, The National have added a second date at the Shepherds Bush Empire in November. Touring off the back of their excellent album, Boxer, which, in my view anyway, is in contention for my album of the year. Support comes from St. Vincent, who’s debut album, Marry Me, is released on Monday. Look for a review on TLOBF shortly…

Those dates in full:

November
1 Dublin Olympia Theatre
2 Glasgow ABC
3 Sheffield Leadmill
4 Manchester Academy 2
6 Birmingham Irish Centre
7 London Shepherd’s Bush Empire
8 London Shepherd’s Bush Empire
9 Bristol Anson Rooms
10 Portsmouth Pyramids

Links
The National [official site] [myspace]

The Futureheads are fast approaching completion of their as-yet untitled third album. The Sunderland massive have been working on the follow up to the huge dissapointment that was News & Tributes with top notch producer Youth out in Andalusia (that’s in Spain geography fans). Details are sketchy at the minute, with no song titles or release date being mentioned.

However, guitarist Ross Millard has been keeping a blog over on the bands official website where he states: “We’ve been as busy as we ever have over the last six months -we started the year writing and rehearsing for the third album, and, after playing some of our best shows in Austria, Italy, Russia, Germany, and Sweden we jetted off to Granada in Spain to make the new record….And I’m pleased to say it’s pretty much finished!”

Millard also added: “We spent three weeks (yes, just THREE WEEKS - record time for the Futuremen!) in Andalusia with Youth making the as-yet-untitled (of course!) third album! It was our best recording experience yet because it was the first one that hasn’t involved any kind of nervous breakdown/exhaustion/bleak Yorkshire farmhouse in the middle of winter! The energy is back, and the songs are tighter, faster and, dare I say it, a bit more playful than before.”

“We’ve changed the way we write a little bit - I’ve been writing songs for Barry (Hyde) to sing, which he’s taken to like Ol’ Blue Eyes himself - Dave (Hyde)’s got some riffs in there, Jaff’s realized his dream of becoming the ultimate back-up singer - it’s all going well so far!”

A 2008 release date has been hinted at, though it is unclear as to what label it will come out on after the band left 679 Recordings last year.

Links
The Futureheads [official site] [myspace]

Hotly tipped Iowa four piece The Envy Corps were forced to pull the plug on a show at London’s Water Rats last night after guitarist Brandon Darner suffered a stroke. The band, who are in the middle of a month long residency at the Kings Cross venue had to cancel the show minutes before they were due on stage.

A spokesman for the band has said that Brandon is still in hospital and doing “okay” following the stroke.

Our best wishes go out to Brandon for a quick and healthy recovery.

Links
The Envy Corps [myspace]

It’s been a pretty good few days for top notch musical guests appearing on US chat shows.

First we had the Duke Spirit perform a couple of tracks on the Henry Rollins Show, then Feist turned up with an entire army of indie superstars on the David Letterman Show (which, in my opinion, could be the best TV performance of the year) and on Tuesday night, the Okkervill River boys turned up on the Conan O’Brian Show to perform Our Life Is Not A Movie Or Maybe It Is from the rather excellent new album The Stage Names (read the TLOBF review of the album here).

If that’s not enough for you all Will Sheff enthusiasts out there, here’s the brand new official video for the same song.

A cacophony of sound coming our way in November. Mono and Jesu are to tour together in the UK! Might be time to invest in those earplugs after all… Jesu’s last album, Conqueror, was their most accessible to date whilst Mono are to release a collection of rare tracks in September.

November
14 Brighton Engine Room (Mono only)
15 Sheffield Corporation
16 Glasgow Oran Mor
17 Leeds Cockpit
18 Birmingham Medicine Bar
19 Bristol Cooler
20 London Scala

Links
Mono [official site] [myspace]
Jesu [official site] [myspace]

The release of this career-spanning two CD retrospective from the noted American feminist, activist, and sexually ambiguous singer-songwriter is timed to coincide with an October visit to these shores. She’s been releasing an album a year since 1990, and from the very beginning Ani DiFranco has steered her own self-sufficient course across the treacherous waters of the corporate music industry. She’s displayed admirable business nouse by creating Righteous Babe Records and building up a cult following in the US - you’ll hear some of those sisters being overly sycophantic (to my taste anyway) on a few of the live tracks here. Thus free to speak her mind, this collection features political rants, makes pro-choice statements: “I was once escorted through the doors of a clinic / By a man wearing a bullet-proof vest” (Hello Birmingham), highlights racial/economic segregation (Subdivision), and contains eco-warnings: “What a waste of thumbs that are opposable / To make machines that are disposable” (Your Next Bold Move), alongside the odd mention of leather bras. This is a woman who sings of her childhood memories: “I remember the feeling of community brewing, of democracy happening” (Paradigm). Yes, she has a lot to say, she’s forthright, and you’re going to listen Goddammit!

Most often she gushes in a characteristic clipped rhythmic delivery where strident streams of words are rapidly spoken over staccato pluckings at the acoustic guitar - percussively picked and with alternative tunings. Her voice can be as sweet and whispered as Joni Mitchell, or work up to the growl of an Alanis Morrisette, but these facets are in the minority. Songs are generally hung over acoustic riffs in preference to melodies, and there is accomplished but anonymously generic soft-rock backing from her band, progressing to more funky and jazzy outings (both pretty tepid it has to be said) in the less abrasive latter part of her career. Difranco is at her best when she appears to let down her bristling guard to divulge something more emotionally tender. Dilate has punch and a celtic wail, while Grey asks: “What kind of paradise am I looking for?”. Or, occasionally a more overt melody and a hint of joy breaks through (Buildings And Bridges, Little Plastic Castle). Having said that, the best of her tirades (Fuel) is an arresting polemic spat out over moody bass and drums.

To tempt existing fans, this set features five new “re-imaginings of Ani classics” (sic). The question is, what about a new listener like myself? It’s clear it’s not overly accessible stuff, and at times comes across as unrelentingly earnest and right on. Whatever you think of her views, and the lyrics are a big cut above the usual, the music often isn’t strong enough to carry the statements for repeated listening. I had the album lying around for some time and it took some effort to do all of it justice. I never felt impulsively drawn back to it; there was never an “Oh my God” moment like the first time I heard Gillian Welch, for example. Bands can work there way into my affection but singer-songwriters tend to need that defining instant. However much the brain says that there are some good nuggets to be mined here, I’ve got to give the gut reaction the benefit of the doubt. Call me shallow. This would have been a much better single album that a slightly flabby double, which drags it down from the good to the average.
58%

Links
Ani DiFranco [official site] [myspace]

The Police have finally arrived on the UK shores for the next leg of their reunion tour. Some tickets are still available for certain shows and, just to show what you shouldn’t miss out on, we’ve got some video streams from their fan club show in February:

4th September 2007 – Birmingham NIA – SOLD OUT
5th September 2007 – Birmingham NIA– SOLD OUT
8th September 2007 – Twickenham Stadium, London
9th September 2007 – Twickenham Stadium, London
15th October 2007 – Manchester MEN– SOLD OUT
16th October 2007 – Manchester MEN– SOLD OUT
19th October 2007 – Millennium Stadium, Cardiff

The Police @ Fan Club Show, Feb 2007
Message In A Bottle / Can’t Stand Losing You / Roxanne

Tiny Dancers are back with brand new single Ashes and Diamonds taken from their rather good debut album Free School Milk. After wowing crowds at the V Festival a couple of weeks ago, we at TLOBF took it upon ourselves to catch up with lead singer David Kay to find out exactly what makes him tick. Continue Reading

Yes we know this is cheap, and probably a long shot but please, vote for us!

There’s a People’s Choice Award as part of this years BT Digital Music Awards and one of the categories is “Best Music Blog”. Now, we’d like to think that we’re pretty good, so why not head over to the site and vote for us under the above category!

We’ve nominated ourselves now, so you can use the snazzy link below (or up there on the right) to vote for us directly!!

We’d love you forever! Honest!

Oceansize return in October with the release of a new album and a tour around the UK. Titled Frames, it will be released 1st October with eight tracks weighing in at over the hour mark:

1. Commemorative 9/11 T-Shirt
2. Unfamiliar
3. Trail Of Fire
4. Savant
5. Only Twin
6. An Old Friend Of The Christies
7. Sleeping Dogs And Dead Lions
8. The Frame

Here’s the dates, apparently supported by Hopewell throughout the tour:

October
1 Birmingham Academy 2
2 Nottingham Rescue Rooms
3 Sheffield Plug
4 Newcastle Academy 2
5 Aberdeen Moshulu
7 Glasgow King Tuts
8 Leeds Cockpit
9 Manchester Academy 3
10 Cardiff Clwb Ifor Bach
11 Bristol Bierkeller
13 Yeovil Ski Lodge
14 Stoke Sugarmill
15 Cambridge Soul Tree
17 London Islington Academy
18 Portsmouth Wedgewood Rooms
19 Oxford Zodiac

Links
Oceansize [official site] [myspace]

An intriguing proposition this mini festival in Cambridge. Its tag-line was “An all day event of new music and outsider folk sounds” and that, to me, brought to mind a whole host of images and sounds. What better way to find out then, than to spend a sunny Saturday afternoon investigating. Set in the majestic surroundings of the All Saints Church in Cambridge, it seemed to suit the music and general vibe of the festival. Sure, compared to the Reading / Leeds nonsense going on during the same weekend this was always going to be something very, very different. But its relaxed atmosphere, the ability to bring your own food and drink into the church and the eclectic line-up only served to make it the most pleasant festival I’ve attended this year.

Kick starting the festival was the flat-capped wonder of Dicky Deegan playing an instrument called the Uilleann pipes. To my, uninitiated, eyes they looked like a distant relative of the bag pipe and was apparently found in the attic of someone in Tazmania before being remade by an Pipe expert who actually recognised what they were. Playing traditional Celtic songs, it was a captivating performance. The pipes don’t look the easiest to play and Deegan’s facial expressions conveyed this as he crafted and wrestled beautiful music and traditional based pieces from the heart of this rare and unique beast.

After this rousing and yet traditional beginning, we had something a little more left field. Lionshare played a Low-esque, drone-inspired acoustic folk set which had plenty in common with Syd Barretts Mad Cap Laughs. The yawning O’s bringing Barrett to mind every time lead singer Simon sang them. Joined, at various times, by a violin, saxophone and pieces of percussion. These menacing back drops of free-form music proved to be stirring and interesting and more so than the rather simplistic songs woven on top of them.

Dead Rat Orchestra

Next up was the true highlight of the day for me, the Dead Rat Orchestra. Hailing from the un-exotic heights of Colchester, they played some of the most interesting and captivatingly minimal post-folk I’ve ever heard. Crossing all the boundaries between performance art, folk and post-rock, they crafted beautiful music from sketches of guitar, violin and percussion. Making use of the odd echoes of sand being dropped and flicked onto some kind of microphone pick-up, it sounded like water dripping in a cave, haunting and striking at the same time. This was joined by occasional wailing vocals, whispering readings from a hidden book of poetry, the noise of a cymbal being scraped against stubble and a microphone rustling through a book. It was brilliantly captivating and astonishing to watch, the entire church seemingly silent in an almost religious awe. If they’d been performing on the pulpit there would have been some acqusations of miracles being performed.

Directing Hand

After that, I didn’t think I’d be astonished again. But I was welcomingly mistaken. Directing Hand saw to that. A two-piece of a vocalist / harpist and a drummer, this was a raw and spell-binding performance. Their set began with some abstract drumming before the powerful voice of a wailing and angelic banshee echoed from the back of the church. As she slowly walked down the aisle, the combined power of her vocals and the improv drumming created a cultured and yet off-centre wall of sound. Their entire set sounded completely improvised and yet there were, as there should be, an underlying thread through each of the pieces. For a more modern reference, it was like watching the inverse White Stripes with a drummer who can raise the dead and a vocalist who channels some angelic broadcast from above. Inspiring.

Unfortunately I missed the beginning of Richard Youngs set due to the break in the evening being cut short. His set was a touch disappointing. Having been use to hearing him deliver his post-folk songs with instrumental backing, tonight it was pure vocals with occasional percussion. Melodic medieval chants crafted by deft undulations in his voice, the drones and hums echoed around the church seemed oddly appropriate. I think I was hoping for more, but it was still an individual and haunting performance.

Next up was the free-jazz improv of Tight Meat. Featuring our esteemed drummer from Directing Hand, it was like watching Acoustic Ladyland, but without the tunes. There was something truly free-wheeling about this, never seemingly rooted in any one place for too long, the music squeaked, rattled and pipped its way through the set. Not really my kind of thing, but their energetic stage presence made up for that.

The Vibracathedral Orchestra played a continuous set, of 45 minutes, of one drone. I kid you not. A wall of sound created by a whole host of instruments, each one seemingly taking its turn to come to the foreground before retreating back to its home of noise. Not really that impressive to watch, it actually made more sense, to my uncultured ears at least, to listen from further back. The acoustics of the church interfering somewhat and allowing other threads of music to become apparent. Very, very different.

The evening finished with the Kemialliset Ystavat. I’m afraid I was left a bit cold by these guys. More drones but without anything interesting going on. There seemed to be a lack of anything happening and it felt as though the band themselves weren’t feeling it as their set finished early. The sight of the bassist looking lost half-way through the first piece didn’t help matters either.

But, my spirits weren’t dulled by the ending. The atmosphere was one of a group of friends getting together to enjoy something different and yet with a common cause. The bands all happy to chat during the day and a couple of beers were shared with the Dead Rat Orchestra who were stuck in Cambridge for the evening. This was a genuinely great day out and a perfect opportunity to witness acts that I would never normally get a chance to hear, let alone see, live. Let’s hope, as this festival is still in its infancy, it can keep going and expose more people to something new and different for many years to come.

Links
Palimpsest Festival [official site]
Photographs courtesy of Jan [www.blue-log.com]

Bruce Springsteen has announced a date at the O2 Arena for 19th December. It’s only one show at the moment, but expect one or two more if ticket sales go mad, which they’re likely to. Tickets to go on sale on the 30th August. Full tour dates below. This will be in support of his new album with the E Street Band, Magic. The Guardian are currently allowing you to download one of the tracks, Radio Nowhere, here.

October
2 Hartford, CT
5 Philadelphia, PA
9-10 East Rutherford, NJ
14 Ottawa, ONT
15 Toronto, ONT
17-18 New York, NY
21 Chicago, IL
26 Oakland, CA
28 Los Angeles, CA

November
2 St Paul, MN
4 Cleveland, OH
5 Auburn Hills, MI
11 Washington, D.C.
14 Pittsburgh, PA
15 Albany, NY
18 Boston, MA
25 Madrid, Spain
26 Bilbao, Spain
28 Milan, Italy
30 Arnhem, Netherlands

December
2 Mannheim, Germany
4 Oslo, Norway
8 Copenhagen, Denmark
10 Stockholm, Sweden
12 Antwerp, Belgium
13 Cologne, Germany
15 Belfast, Ireland
17 Paris, France
19 London, UK

How do you fancy getting free records, free entrance to gigs and a chance to interview your favourite artists?

Well, we here at The Line of Best Fit have grown so much since our inception last year that we’re on the look out for new writers to join our crew.

We’ve interviewed the likes of Jens Lekman, The National, Spoon, Beirut, The Cribs and The Duke Spirit since our humble beginnings, plus we were invited to run a week of features on the Bella Union and Wichita labels as part of their birthday celebrations last year.

As for gigs, well, we’ve sent our contributors to see CSS, Minus The Bear, Jens Lekman, Iron & Wine, Jesus and Mary Chain, Queens of the Stone Age, Patrick Watson, Beach House, Beirut, The National and Battles, just to name a few!

So, if you want to join a music website that’s going places, send an email to Rich Hughes at rjlh@thelineofbestfit.com with an example of your work – be it an album or gig review and no more than 500 words please – and we’ll get back to you!

Hot off the Youtube press… a recording of Feist performing 1,2,3,4 on last nights Letterman show. Not your usual performance however. She was backed by one of the most impressive indie-rock choirs of all time. Featuring Grizzly Bear, A.C. Newman (of The New Pornographers), Mates Of State, Broken Social Scene (including Kevin Drew), and various members of The National. Marvellous…

Thanks to our friends over at The Music Slut for the heads up!

Elbow frontman Guy Garvey has revealed in an interview with Gigwise that their as-yet-untitled new LP is, at times, much darker than previous efforts.

Speaking backstage at the recent Summer Sundae festival, Garvey explained that the band have been making the record in the wake of the death of their close friend Brian Clancy, and was written during a particualry “nasty period” in the Manchester band’s lives.

He said: “Lyrically in parts it’s lighter, but in parts it’s much darker – it’s been a tough couple of years for the band in many ways. I was writing lyrics throughout the healing process so there’s some really positive life-affirming stuff. Writing more about how loss affects people positively rather than negatively.” Despite definitely being dark in places, Garvey iterated that the album is not “a miserable, moaning record.”

It seems like forever since their last album Leaders Of The Free World was released. You can remind yourself what an underated band Elbow are by listening to a live session recorded last year for the American radio station KEXP right here.

Links
Elbow [official site] [myspace]