Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid Album Review

The Seldom Seen Kid by Elbow, Album Review

The Seldom Seen Kid is the fourth studio album by the indie rock band Elbow. It was released by Fiction Records on March 17, 2008 in the United Kingdom and will be released by Geffen Records on April 22, 2008 in the United States.

Produced by keyboard player, Craig Potter, The Seldom Seen Kid is the follow up to 2005’s universally acclaimed Leaders Of The Free World and first for Fiction/Geffen Records.

Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid Track listing

All songs written by Elbow; lyrics by Guy Garvey (except where noted).

1. “Starlings” - 5:20
2. “The Bones of You” (Elbow; contains elements of “Summertime” by George Gershwin, Dubose Heyward, Dorothy Heyward & Ira Gershwin) - 4:49
3. “Mirrorball” - 5:50
4. “Grounds for Divorce” - 3:39
5. “An Audience with the Pope” - 4:27
6. “Weather to Fly” - 4:29
7. “The Loneliness of a Tower Crane Driver” - 5:14
8. “The Fix” (Elbow, Richard Hawley) - 4:27
9. “Some Riot” - 5:23
10. “One Day Like This” - 6:34
11. “Friend of Ours” - 5:01
12. “We’re Away” (UK bonus track) - 1:59

Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid Amazon.co.uk Review

There are few things in life quite so liberating as the opening track on an Elbow album–they’re like airlocks between the plainness of the outside world and the elaborate melancholic heave-ho that you are likely about to submerge yourself in. Following predecessors “Any Day Now”, “Ribcage” and “Station Approach”, “Starlings” opens their fourth album The Seldom Seen Kid rising from a bed of tumbling electronic subtlety like a depressed Atari game loading up, adding bare touches of piano, glimpses of ambient guitar, out of body background vocals, an understated pulse and a wisp of strings, before–EXCELSIS!–a fanfare avalanche of horns crashes the gate and elevates things to gasping palatial heights, before Guy Garvey’s inimitable gravel tone and wrenchingly poetic reinterpretations of the everyday announce their arrival proper. It’s astonishing, by far the most progressive moment on the album and if anything it sets the bar too high. But even when the pace dips, and songs like “Mirrorball” and “Weather to Fly” don’t distinguish themselves quite enough, their textural peerlessness remains. This is a beautiful sounding record. Their collaboration with Richard Hawley may be more of a curiosity than a thing of beauty, but the highs, the riffing cross-stitch of “Ground for Divorce”, the desolate grandeur of “The Loneliness of a Tower Crane Driver” and the enlightened string-laden anthem “On a Day Like This” (like their own Sound of Music–only substitute the Alpine peaks for a Manchester high-rise) number amongst the best of their career.
–James Berry

Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid Album Info

Released United Kingdom March 17, 2008, United States April 22, 2008
Recorded 2006-2007, Blueprint Studios, Manchester
Genre Indie rock
Length 56:57
Label Fiction Records, Polydor, Geffen Records
Producer Craig Potter, Elbow

sources http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seldom_Seen_Kid and http://www.amazon.co.uk/Seldom-Seen-Kid-Elbow/dp/B0013F2M52