Some day we'll be drinking with the seldom seen kid

Elbow seem to be back in business. Three years after the release of stupidly good Seldom Seen Kid, a new album will be coming in a few months. Build a rocket boys! will be it, and there's not much to go on except this new video of the song 'Lippy Kids'. I don't usually write about music news, mainly because I don't know any. But this is the rare thing that's worth a look two months before release. The video probably speaks for itself, so you'd be better off watching that first. Though I'll put on my music reviewer's hat and put some words to it (note: this is not a real hat, but I could consider getting one). Elbow are a band that seemed to have peaked fifteen years into their career. They released albums before Seldom Seen Kid, but only a relatively few people were paying attention. I only came in on that album, when a friend said 'you'll like this', and the songs were the backing track to every second television trailer. It may be the case that they'll never better that album - the one that elevated them to stadiums and mainstream ears - but they'll do a good job trying. It easily flowed between ballads and catchy riffs and soaring orchestral wonderousness. Held together by Guy Garvey's soothing tones. As an album opener, this new song is more relaxing than usual. Doesn't even have any unexpected trumpet explosions. Whatever comes next will probably be a treat.

And if you liked that you'll probably like this. To my ears The National sound like an American Elbow. Their fans would probably say it was the other way round, but I'll make the comparison for the sake of this post.