It must be thanks to One Day Like This, by far their biggest hit, that Elbow have ended up with such a cuddly reputation. Life-affirming though many of their anthems are, it doesn’t do the long-running band justice. An early line, from Newborn in 2001, springs to mind: “I’ll be the corpse in your bathtub.”
As they return with their eighth album, the darkness has returned. Frontman and lyricist Guy Garvey dwells on the death of his father and two close friends, as well as the victims of the Grenfell Tower fire, on the stark rock of White Noise White Heat, and the train suicide of a stranger on the tense acoustic strum of The Delayed 3:15. The band have joined Damon Albarn and Sam Fender in feeling forced to consider Brexit: the split personality of Dexter & Sinister, with heavyweight bass heading towards a soaring psychedelic freakout, proves infinitely more enjoyable than the last three years of politics.
The band are opening new doors, not rejecting sounds and styles because they aren’t Elbow enough. On Deronda Road is particularly odd, a country guitar giving way to jittery electronic beats and a wash of vocal harmonies — Radiohead by way of Crosby, Stills & Nash.
Those happiest with the widescreen beauty of older songs must wait for Weightless, a gorgeous track that closes this uneasy album on a hopeful note. Elsewhere, it’s the sound of an ambitious band pushing against mid-career stasis.
