Elbow, Flying Dream 1

Since I first heard the opening drum beat of Any Day Now, the opening track on Elbow's debut album Asleep In the Back...way back in 2001, I have been a fan. Seriously, I named this blog after the closing song on that album. The band's brilliance is undeniable, but this doesn't mean that I have loved everything that they have done over the past twenty years. This was especially the case with their last two albums, particularly Giants Of All Sizes. As OMH best wrote, while it was brilliant in parts, it felt claustrophobic, as if the weight of both personal and political issues was threatening to engulf the band.

Flying Dream 1, Elbow's ninth studio album, is different. As Paste Magazine wrote, it's an album 'that leans wholly on the band’s quieter side. It sounds like the band held a competition during quarantine last year to write the prettiest songs they possibly could, ranked the 10 most beautiful ones they came up with and packaged them into a single record. These types of songs have always been lurking in the background of each Elbow record, but they finally decided to make it a full album’s sonic mission statement. And the results are stunning.'

Space has always been an important element of elbow's music. Guy Garvey has referenced bands like Talk Talk and The Blue Nile as influences in part because of how they used space. On Flying Dream 1, which was recorded in an empty Theatre Royal in Brighton, the band has never used it better. Garvey's voice and lyrics along with each of his bandmate's individual instruments seem to float in a sea of openness. It's just beautifully done and makes you appreciate every element of each of these 10 majestic songs.