Everything is coming up roses for Guy Garvey. After years toiling in the margins, Elbow are now an arena- filling band. Garvey is also a successful BBC 6 presenter and is following David Byrne’s footsteps in curating next year’s edition of the Meltdown festival in London. Not content with putting out another Elbow EP during the summer, Garvey now unleashes his debut solo album, Courting The Squall.
Opening with the lovely ‘Aingela’s Eyes’, Garvey’s distinctive voice is as unique and compelling as ever. The music, meanwhile, has a lightness of touch that is very different to Elbow’s schtick (the band were once memorably described as sounding like the passing of time itself ). On this occasion, rather than the usual cohorts, Garvey’s backing band are Pete Jobson of I Am Kloot on guitar, Nathan Sudders of The Whip on bass and Alex Reeves on drums.
Courting The Squall should do a fine job of tiding over Elbow fans until the band’s next album. And given their prolific work rate, that might just come sooner than you’d think!