do your homework<\/a>. A group like Elbow, which blends folk, blues, rock and prog elements into a kind of dreamy stream-of-consciousness chamber-pop, simply wouldn\u2019t exist absent the late-period experimentations of their Liverpudlian forebears.<\/p>\n\u201cStation Approach\u201d kicks off Leaders<\/i> in formidable style. A solitary tambourine sets the beat, then acoustic guitar enters, then piano, then voice, then a second piano, then electric guitar, then a gentle blizzard of other soft, mysterious sounds in the background as the narrative gains steam, until the drums arrive and the guitar dials up and suddenly you\u2019re scraping the clouds. The effect is like the opening of a rock concert, where they start the first song at a moderate sound level and gradually ease it up until four minutes later you realize your rib cage is vibrating.<\/p>\n
Next up, \u201cPicky Bugger\u201d lives up to its roguish title with a spare, tension-filled arrangement of plucked guitars over pulsing bass and snare as vocalist\/lyricist Guy Gardner sings of \u201cKicking up mischief, walking a wire \/ Kicking up mischief, feeding the fire.\u201d The cheekiness of his tone suggests mischief of epic proportions, even as the music practices restraint.<\/p>\n
\u201cForget Myself\u201d opens with clattery percussion anchoring a circular melody that establishes intensity from the start, adding and layering new elements moment by moment. The lyric is another sharp character sketch, starring one particularly memorable figure from a night on the town: \u201cThe man on the door has a head like Mars \/ Like a baby born to the doors of the bars \/ And surrounded by steam with his folded arms \/ He\u2019s got that urban genie thing going on \/ He\u2019s so mercifully free of the pressures of grace \/ Saint Peter in satin he\u2019s like Buddha with mace.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brilliant, right? Six lines and this man is flesh and blood, standing in front of you big as life. It\u2019s magic.<\/p>\n
Late in the song, as it\u2019s busy achieving final lift-off, there\u2019s something that sounds vaguely like Sufi chanting going on in the deep background as the dense layers of sound finally cease building and begin to peel back again, like an onion. Again: brilliant.<\/p>\n
Things quiet down for \u201cThe Stops,\u201d a mostly acoustic number embellished with harmonies, bells and percussion. There\u2019s a unique and often unusual architecture to each Elbow song; in this case, the acoustic guitar starts out as the rhythm instrument before it shifts halfway through, percussion coming in to anchor the rhythm as the keyboards provide a keening single-note backdrop. Oh, and the chorus has bass, but no drums. Sure, why not?<\/p>\n
The title tracks arrives with a much heavier tone, a big dirty bassline doubled on muscular electric guitar, carving out a dense, sophisticated blues. The gist of the song\u2014\u201cThe leaders of the free world \/ Are just little boys throwing stones\u201d\u2014is a passionate screed against the perils of apathy. As before, the song adds layers as it goes, thickening and gaining momentum as the guitar reasserts, the chorused background vocals add on, and the song crescendos before doing a slow fade.<\/p>\n
The second half of Leaders<\/i> features songs of nearly equal quality, if somewhat lesser memorability. The dreamy, rather Pink Floyd-ish melancholy of \u201cAn Imagined Affair\u201d gives way to a complex bass figure over stuttering drums as \u201cMexican Standoff\u201d intrudes, building into a rather aggressive guitar attack in the fourth minute before coming to a crashing halt; it\u2019s a fun ride while it lasts. <\/p>\n
Things go gauzy and indistinct again as \u201cThe Everthere\u201d offers a sweet, slumbery love song before \u201cMy Very Best\u201d dials it up to a gentle thrum, a lush string section accentuating a tune about wallowing in loss (\u201cYou\u2019ve gone \/ Gone and made a beautiful hole in my heart,\u201d sings the wistful Garvey). \u201cGreat Expectations\u201d is similarly understated, modest and intimate in contrast with its title. Closer \u201cPuncture Repair\u201d is an 11-line, one-minute-and-forty-eight second blip on the musical radar, just Garvey and piano and a brief glimpse of a sad character getting a boost from a friend.<\/p>\n
Elbow is in its own way a character, an iconoclastic, often melancholy but occasionally fiery group whose musical identity is firmly located within its arrangements, which are somehow both elaborate and simple, complex and elegant. Painterly, that\u2019s the word; Elbow paints in layers of colored sound. And while Leaders Of The Free World<\/i> tails off a bit toward the end of the rainbow, it rides high at its apex.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":32402,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[8184],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-44160","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-elbow","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/44160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/44160\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=44160"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=44160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}