Elbow, Asleep In The Back (V2) 9+
In an era when every other British band is shamelessly apeing past incarnations of Radiohead (Coldplay, Travis, Doves), it's refreshing to hear a band actually worth paying attention to. Elbow's Asleep In The Back is the true marriage of Pink Floyd and Joy Division that OK Computer was mistakenly pegged as. While the lyrical themes and tones are downbeat, the sound is not cold and alienating like '97 era Radiohead. Manchester's Elbow is more organic and pleasurable, like later period Talk Talk and recent Beta Band, with Guy Garvey's voice echoing Genesis-era Peter Gabriel more than Jeff Buckley. There's no shortage of demand for this sort of gracefully dark miserablism. It's amazing that this album won't be released in the U.S. until January, when it made a reasonable splash in the UK nearly the whole year. The band is a victim of major label consolidation -- the album was originally slated to come out in 1998 on Island, but was shelved when Universal consumed them. With only five of the original eleven tracks, Asleep In The Back is release 1.5, showing Elbow in considerably sharper form than contemporary newcomers. The instrumentation manages to hold interest when there aren't vocals while avoiding clichéd prog-rock wankery. With subtle use of acoustic guitars, horns and keyboards, the mid-tempo music sparkles rather than drives. There are plenty of sonic surprises, such as the electro-blasts in "Coming Second" that somehow recall the "Oooh-eee-ooohs" of The Wizard Of Oz's Umpaloompas. While not exactly a concept album, it works as a cohesive piece much like, say, Echo & The Bunnymen's Ocean Rain. Any other song order simply wouldn't make as much sense. The centerpiece is the 7:33 "Newborn," Elbow's "The Killing Moon," which builds up into a heart-racing climax that you just don't hear very often these days. Cherry-picking from the past while sounding thoroughly current, Asleep In The Back is an impressive debut from Manchester's most promising band.
