If Elbow know anything, they know how to build atmosphere.
They know how to craft a world with sound, how to populate it with echoes of reality, where and when to give us glimpses of a better, warmer world.
Part of the appeal of ‘The Take Off and Landing Of Everything’ is that incredible world-building at work. Another, larger part is the uncannily poetic perceptions of Guy Garvey, watching the world we live in and bringing it to life in a way we’re all much too lazy to attempt.
Elbow want us to wake up to the noise and splendour of the city; to drink in and savour the quiet moments of life with the same excitement and appreciation we afford a Game of Thrones season finale or a £20 bottle of wine.
Whether you hear the joy of new love in ‘Real Life (Angel)’ or fascination in the eyes of an Englishman abroad in ‘New York Morning’, this music always remains equal parts celebration and mystery, perpetually caught in a moment where you can’t tell the difference between the two.
Opener ‘This Blue World’ serves as a prelude to these gentle overtures, mythic and wistful, only revealing its true size and nature by degrees, like approaching a mighty castle in the fog. “Blizzard blossoms” fly here and there in this warm-blooded fantasy, a young man’s dream played with a grown man’s keen ear for subtlety.
The expressive, experimental songs follow, albeit with one foot firmly on the ground as only Elbow seem to manage. ‘Charge’ offers strength, severity and a string section Peter Gabriel would chew his arm off to sing over. “I’m from another century,” Garvey sings. “Give us G&T and sympathy.”
It’s only fair to say at this point that a good chunk of this album was recorded at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studio in Wiltshire. A fair old trek from their usual digs in Salford’s Blueprint Studio, Garvey explained the band’s decision to record there: “When you’re there, you get six months work done in two weeks. To go and live and breathe your record without the distractions of the rest of life, you make creative decisions you would not have made at home.”
You’d better believe there’s been some unusual creative decisions. ‘Fly Boy Blue – Lunette’ is a case in point. Garvey’s multi-tracked voice teams with dissonant horns and a sparse, understated electric guitar lends the track an appealing surreality, comparable to The Beatles’ weirder moments on the White Album. Think ‘Glass Onion’ and ‘Happiness Is a Warm Gun’ on holiday in Rochdale, bumping into ‘Rocky Raccoon’ later on in the pub. Fascinating and non-linear, it goes places you wouldn’t expect it to and makes you glad you followed.
‘New York Morning’ marks an earthier, more human approach, with serene beginnings layering up into a wide-awake groove. Released as a single in January, it has already sparked publicity with its refrain: “Oh, my giddy aunt, New York can talk / It’s the modern Rome and folk are nice to Yoko.” The usually lambasted Mrs. John Lennon was so touched by the song that she wrote an open letter to the band, thanking them and speaking of Lennon’s inspiration to live there the moment he saw Dylan striding down its streets on his famous Freewheelin’ album cover.
The second half of the album benefits hugely from the title track, a seven minute goliath lumbering and galloping across the stereophonic landscape with surprising grace. Tender piano dances with mighty timpani, circled with harmonic rounds of an echoing refrain, like a ‘Hey Jude’ that you never want to end. Unlike the real ‘Hey Jude’, which technically never ends; Paul McCartney is contractually obliged to “Naaa na na NA NA NA NAAAH” himself to sleep every night, or he automatically forfeits the royalties to Ringo.
Back to Elbow and their endings, which they manage in a somewhat strange and perfect manner. If ‘This Blue World’ was the landing, looking down on pleasant dreams from a starry sky, ‘The Blanket of Night’ is very much the take-off, looking up into pitch black and feeling like someone is staring back at you, with all the sweat on the back of the neck that entails.
Eerie moments of silence punctuate this final track, filled in with ghostly synths that owe something in their own way to the epilogue of Jeff Wayne’s War Of The Worlds. Like that weird and infamous album, we’re left cold; there’s no resolution, no grand finale to see us off. It makes you wonder if the album is deliberately back to front, and this is no ending, but a beginning.
And that works. For Elbow, that’s perfect. This is the most Northern band in the world. They made craft ale to tie in with their album. They turned ‘Independent Woman’ into a cheeky xylophonic polka. They don’t need towering bombast or crashing cymbals to make music that touches you.
Just warmth, and momentum, and organised silence.
