ELBOW
FLYING DREAM 1
POLYDOR
★★★★
Sentimentality in any art is confusing, even controversial. To some it’s a crime; to others, it’s the very quality sought. Elbow have, over the past 24 years and eight records, made a career of treading the fine line separating the two, and their new album’s no different. If, however, Zen-inspired author Reginald Horace Blyth was right when he wrote, “We are being sentimental when we give to a thing more tenderness than God gives it”, then few could accuse Elbow of schmaltz, because they assign compassion where it ought to be conferred: to life’s overlooked or overcooked moments.