Album Review: Elbow, Audio Vertigo

You can usually tell an Elbow track straight away, whether it’s the sweeping, bittersweet music, or frontman Guy Garvey’s downbeat vocal delivery, complete with the kind of witty, literary lyrics that have long marked him out as a cut above the average tunesmith.

For their 10th long-player, Audio Vertigo, though, the Bury collective have torn up the blueprint, Garvey declaring that these dozen songs have been created out of “gnarly, seedy grooves… in garagey rooms.” This listener doesn’t quite get the garage influences, but there’s no denying the sonic palette that has served them so well has been broadened exponentially.

The most obvious examples are lead single ‘Lovers’ Leap’ and the magnificent ‘Balu’, both built on an insistent brass tattoo that sounds like a horde of Indian trumpeters blasting out their hearts’ innermost desires. The former is all hypnotic rhythms and polished production, while the latter begins as a shimmering, synth-driven affair and ends as a joyous bellow from the soul. It’s the most addictively arresting song they’ve released in years.

Meanwhile, they play with grooves and stop-start rhythms on tracks like ‘Very Heaven’ and ‘Things I’ve Been Telling Myself For Years’, the latter complete with gospel choir. The quietly insistent ‘The Picture’ is driven by a quasi-frantic drum part and a dramatic swirling string section, Garvey lamenting how, “There’s no cocaine in this cocaine.”

Elsewhere, ‘Poker Face’ is not a Lady Gaga cover, but instead a beautifully melancholy one minute and 42 seconds of utter loveliness; ‘Good Blood Mexico City’ has an urgency not usually associated with Garvey’s mob; and only the closing ‘From The River’ has an Elbow-by-numbers vibe. Bravo.

8/10