Guy Garvey's got a great voice, and good thing, too. As Elbow have morphed from ambitious but sterile art-rockers to something slightly more visceral, his singing-- equal parts Peter Gabriel and Talk Talk's Mark Hollis-- has been one of the few elements linking the Manchester band's varied output. It's also what's helped Elbow stick out a bit from the choirboy pack of Chris Martin, guy from Keane, et al. At the same time it's not a very rock'n'roll voice, which perhaps explains how, despite some degree of hype, Elbow have always fallen just shy of expectations.
Fitting, then, that "Starlings"-- the first track on Elbow's fourth album The Seldom Seen Kid-- is all about expectations, or at least subverting them. The track begins with an intense cacophony before settling into a vaguely Polynesian groove; a sole orchestral stab blasts out as quickly as it disappears once again. It's a full two minutes before Garvey even sings, and by then one would be forgiven for thinking that, modest melody aside, expectation is all the suspensefully static track has to offer. Yet Elbow are album artists, first and foremost, and in that context it's hard to come up with a better way to ease into The Seldom Seen Kid. Indeed, the similarly exotic second track "The Bones of You", with its flamenco underpinnings and Gershwin coda, stands in stark contrast to its predecessor, and it's here that the benefits of Garvey's voice really come into play. Were he to rise to a pained falsetto, "The Bones of You" would invite endless comparisons to other, slightly more conspicuous British art-rock bands. That Garvey sounds so comfortable in his skin even as his band sheds its own from track to track helps thread the self-produced disc, suite-like.
There are no roman numerals to be found in The Seldom Seen Kid's song titles, nor is there particularly dexterous playing to be heard from track to track, but that's not to discount the disc's mildly proggy vibe. The ebb and flow of the disc feels like it's advancing some unknowable plot, always the sign of a well sequenced disc but also the bridge between songs like the lovely "Mirrorball" and the bluesy (in the get-the-Led-out sense) "Grounds for Divorce". There, the song's lyrical and musical reputation are in keeping with the band's exploration of the static as well as blues traditions. It's a tragic drinking song where the protagonist loses himself in "a hole in my neighborhood down which of late I cannot help but fall." Less fancy-pants lyricists would have just said "bar," but Garvey knows the value of a poetic line or two. In typically ornate Garvey fashion, he's called "An Audience with the Pope" "a Bond theme if Bond was from Bury and a recovering Catholic," but he could have just described it as Tom Waits doing 007.
The song is a rare autopilot moment on a disc that otherwise makes so much effort to skirt cliché. Anyone expecting "Some Riot" to reflect it's title is headed for disappointment-- the song could easily explode, but follows a different, more moving path instead-- and "Weather to Fly" is almost mantra-like in its simplicity. Yet while "The Loneliness of a Tower Crane Driver" begins much the same, it gives way to some subtle twists, turns, and escalations that push the track into dramatically fresh territory. On "The Fix", the twist is that guest Richard Hawley's croon vies with Garvey's voice as guide through the jazzy song, vaguely film score in its menace but pretty cool despite its half-familiarity.
The single "One Day Like This" sounds like just that-- a single-- with its faster gait and sunnier demeanor, buoyed by strings and massed vocals despite a deceptive but welcome surfeit of space in the mix, but per Elbow's own downbeat reputation, the album doesn't end there. That would be too easy. Instead, The Seldom Seen Kid ends with a bonus tribute to the title's inspiration, Manchester songwriter/troubadour/busker Bryan Glancy. Track down and browse the website dedicated to his memory and you'll likely wish you knew him. Listen to this absolutely beautiful tribute and you'll miss him like a best friend.
