Elbow - Leaders of the Free World

The third time is definitely the charm for British rockers Elbow. Don’t get me wrong; their previous releases were far from disappointing. Asleep at the Back made for an excellent, if downbeat, debut, and the band gave the sophomore jinx a resounding kick in the brains with the superb Cast of Thousands. Their brand of brooding, impressionistic rock always struck me as England as seen from the ground floor; dirty and dreamlike, swathed in fog and grime. While Leaders of the Free World retains that foundation, it branches out in ways that its predecessors never did. It bites as well as it broods and grins as well as it grimaces. Hell, it even capers a little. Opener “Station Approach” itself seems conjured from the English ether, the gradual layering of instruments – tambourine, acoustic guitar, fluttering harp, and so on – slowly bringing it into being as it gains form and energy. A song about the joys of homecoming, it plants its listeners firmly on their feet in Manchester, only to lead them back into the murk of the mischievously furtive “Picky Bugger.” The album generally proceeds along these lines, swerving from rumbustious rompers like “Forget Myself” and “Mexican Standoff” to misty ballads “The Stops” and “The Everthere,” with the title track serving as its cardinal piece. Gritty, gnashing guitars sound like sirens here and queasy organs add to the general sense of unease as vocalist Guy Garvey takes aim at President Bush. The wounds of the world, glossed over or ignored in the opening quad, gape wide. Mired in the past and warped by nostalgia, the album becomes a place of questions, rather than possibilities, where all the “saints have taken bribes” and “All the angels have taken dives.” The initial spurts of energy subside into rainy day serenades and somnolent choruses, and concluding tune “Puncture Repair” ends in uncertainty, feeling more like an abscess slapped on a sore than a true salve. Even as the band pieces things back together, the cracks still show, and the album crumbles back into the foggy obscurity out of which it crept. Garvey stands at the center of all this. His skills as a storyteller have always been exceptional, and here he adds a lyrical virtuosity worthy of Henry Miller; he’s as likely to piss in the champagne as give rein to flights of fancy. He mythologizes mere bouncers, morphing them into genies and Christmas trees, and creates a wedding scene with a prostitute priest and a choir of soccer fans. Lead single “Forget Myself” finds him starting with the alliterative realism of people “pacing Piccadilly in packs again” only to fire off rhapsodic volleys like “The sun’s signing off and the simmering sky/ Has the heathen hue of a woman on fire.” He wields words like weapons and wears them like a bandage, hurling and hiding behind them with equal ease. In other words, he, and his mates along with him, accomplish precisely what he only had imagined on “Station Approach.” They redesign the city, their city, in words and music. It sure makes for a marvelous creation. [www.elbow.co.uk]