Elbow
★★★★
Audio Vertigo
POLYDOR. CD/DL/LP
Built from “gnarly, seedy grooves”, their tenth feels suitably landmark.
A panoply of touchstones informs Audio Vertigo, everything from Arctic Monkeys’ recent spy-noir to Fela Kuti grooves to Smithsian indie (see Good Blood Mexico City) ennobling imaginationoverload songs about self-deception, toxic relationships, and a real-life knife fight Elbow’s frontman saw in Istanbul. Sung with his steamrollered Mancunian vowels intact, Garvey’s allusive, playful lyrics are as golden as those of your Bermans and Caves here, drawing on Wordsworth, but also name-checking Leo Sayer and The Jungle Book’s affable bear, Baloo. Brief segues such as Where Is It and Embers Of Day offer glimpses of Elbow at work –“Give it fat, wide wheels!” shouts Garvey parsing groove options for the former – while Her To The Earth fires on Stevie Wonder(ful) synth and the heavenly backing-vocals of Ella Hohnen-Ford, Kianja and Eliza Oakes.