Ack Phhht!

The Seldom Seen Kid

So, Elbow’s The Seldom Seen Kid has won the 2008 Mercury Prize (beating out Radiohead, who are apparently doomed to be forever nominated, never victorious), awarded to the best album out of the UK or Ireland for the year.  I actually just got around to picking up a copy of the album two weeks ago, and was hoping to have had a review up for it by now.  But that hasn’t happened – the problem being that The Seldom Seen Kid, like their debut Asleep in the Back (the only other Elbow album I have), is entirely made up of slow, quiet, melancholy songs, which take a long, long time to sink in.

Eventually they do, however, and as with Elbow’s debut, the results are rewarding – alternately mesmerizing and unsettling, and frequently beautiful, with rhythmic complexities and subtle shadings that slowly reveal themselves across multiple listens.  The only band that I can think of that they really remind me of are the Doves, except without that group’s occasional forays into anthemic rock (“The Cedar Room”) or pop (“Words”).

The Seldom Seen Kid turns out to be a very consistent, strong set of material.  There are a few “rock” songs – first single “Grounds For Divorce” (which throws some fuzz bass into the chorus, making it considerably heavier than the other tracks) and “Bones Of You” (also a single) – but most of it plies Elbow’s usual slow, deliberate terrain.  “Weather To Fly” is one of these tracks, but it benefits from a particularly delicate production that matches the song’s mood perfectly.  “The Loneliness Of A Tower Crane Driver” and “Some Riot” are both slow, stately tracks, but the former builds to a stirring climax while the latter slowly fades away in haunting reverie.  The album’s highlight, however, is penultimate track (and second single) “One Day Like This”, an uncharacteristically uplifting track, with a beautiful, rasped chorus and a sing-along fadeout reminiscent of “Hey Jude”.

There are a couple weak moments on the album – “An Audience With The Pope”, which manages to largely sound trite, and “The Fix”, which sounds like the band was watching too many spaghetti westerns with Ennio Morricone soundtracks while recording.  But everything else is top-notch, and the album is well worth picking up.