Things always seem to ring so very true with Elbow, like their life story’s already worn down the nib of the pen from bolding and underlining every word. You talk of struggles for recognition, that decade-long slog against adversity leading to the overdue release of their sterling debut ‘Asleep In The Back’ has already been well documented. You regularly talk of Second Album Syndrome, having your whole life to collect your thoughts for your first and then being surreptitiously dumped in the studio with a figurative ticking time bomb of expectation to create another to order. The past year must have been like living under a weighted magnifying glass on fast-forward. Theirs might not correlate exactly with say The Charlatans’ mid-career minefields, but that they’ve come through to the other side with something as rich, and indeed as true, as ‘Cast Of Thousands’ is really as much of a celebration and reward for us as it must be for them.
There must have been changes then? Well yes, absolutely, and then no. There’s been no time for any real overhaul. The melancholy and thick emotional syrups remain at its heart and cling to its edges, as of course you’d expect them to. You don’t carry round something quite as cumbersome, deeply set or tightly entwined unless it belongs. The tremendous flowering ‘Ribcage’ opens the album with its below-radar bubbling, in the ‘Any Day Now’ vein only markedly better, tugging at the creases of your brow with the expected aptitude. But there’s more. “Pull my ribs apart” urges Guy lethargically between sparse background twinkles. “And let the SUN INSIDE” erupt the London Community Gospel Choir around him, penetrating his lonely haven. There was little actual hope on that last album, there seemed no room for such a thing, but this record is positively awash with it under its hardened skin.
As a compliment to that it’s like they also found a mirror once ‘Asleep In The Back’ was put to bed, and looked themselves up and down for the very first time. So many stray hairs, upturned collars and dishevelled characteristics have been ironed away. It’s as if they can now be what they always believed they were anyway, but never thought to check. This is a tidy record, a tight record, a complete and sharply focused work, buffed over and left to shine. There’s no renegade like ‘Bitten By The Tailfly’, nothing remotely as tearaway (or prog) as ‘Newborn’, nothing as comparatively cold as ‘Little Beast’, though the album does skirt close to the latter territory. Those may have been your favourites first time, with good reason, but reigning them in is what makes this album make sense.
The nearly-tribal ‘Snooks’ complete with overwhelming intrusions rises out of the delicately-laced ballad ‘Fugitive Motel’ to merge into the tearful out-of-body bliss of ‘Switching Off’. All separate moments, all driven by the same concrete heartbeat. All of which show off their startling talent to weave impact from strands of individual delicacy. In many ways this is a record founded by the consummate rhythmic couplings of Richard Jupp and Pete Turner, the way the churning bass tumbles over the sharp beats of ‘Not A Job’ is enough to make you double over with a deep consuming pleasure. They’ll knowingly toy with you too, just take the arrival of the devastating Hammond in ‘I’ve Got Your Number’. In a way the guitars have taken a back seat this time, weaving expertly like ivy over whatever is already there. Which should put pay to those wildly incorrect New Acoustic accusations at least.
For all their strengths though, showcased reaching their subtle peaks throughout, their main weapon is Guy Garvey. Such a strong and above all true sounding voice, you can hear his baggage trailing behind in the echo, and used to deliver such beautifully poetic and tenderly arranged words. When he sings of “walking though the long grass on your hands” (‘Not A Job’) or “teaching you how to whistle like a boy” (‘Switching Off’), hearing them delivered with such understated vividness almost makes them your own thoughts. He is master of sharing the bare bones of his experience with all.
But of course the crowning glory of this album is everyone’s experience. To a certain extent anyway. The much-publicised ‘Grace Under Pressure’ floats from dreamy Spiritualized sourced atmospherics through abrasive organic break-beats, uplifting gospel, a melee of piano and gutsy strings and is finally lifted up to the alter in this sonic cathedral by the Glastonbury 2002 audience imparting that they “still believe in love, so fuck you”. It is utterly breathtaking and much larger than imagined. A moment they, and any others willing to take the challenge, will have to work very hard to surpass. It wasn’t all unexpected, they’d offered clues already. But that shouldn’t take away from the sense of achievement, of completion, of reaching the summit. A true band. A great collective. A phenomenal record which should be cherished.