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.

 

Cleo Sol, Mother

"I do this for the Younger me, that didn’t always speak what was on her heart & that made herself smaller to fit others ideals. I’ve never felt as present as I do now. I’ve always tried to embrace where I am in life, but at certain points you just get lost, and don’t have the awareness to navigate yourself out and into the light. I guess life happens in waves, and thinking of that always gives me peace in the moment. I became a mother this year, and it’s been the most transformative, uplifting, heart melting, strength giving experience thus far that led me to write this album." Cleo Sol

Cleo Sol, who is part of the music collective Sault, has returned with her second solo album Mother. Once again, it's a collection of highly personal songs. This time Sol, as a new mother, centers on Motherhood. Here she journeys through her relationship with her own mother acknowledging both the good and the bad, the lessons she learned, and the advice that was passed down to her. Sol then turns her attention to her thoughts, hopes, and desires for her child and for herself as a mother. 

Sol's song are at times heartwarming, at times heart breaking, but always beautiful. They sound like out-of-time ballads that elicit comparisons to Roberta Flack and Carole King at their most intimate and inviting (Allmusic). It's quite an achievement and makes Mother feel like a classic album that you have lived with for years.

The Reytons, Kids Off The Estate

Kids Off The Estate, the debut album by the Doncaster, Yorkshire UK band The Reytons is a real banger, to use the British expression. With this said, upon first listen, I will admit that I struggled a bit to take the band and their album seriously on their own musical merits. The Reytons sound an awful lot like the Arctic Monkeys. And lead singer Johnny Yerrell sounds so much like Alex Turner...it was hard not to shake comparisons. But I just kept finding myself coming back to Kids Off The State and came to a place where I had to give them their dues.

Kids Off The Estate is an album bustling with energy and swagger as the band spins gritty working-class stories of life in what I assume is Doncaster with angular guitars, pounding drums, and anthemic choruses. Over the fourteen songs, The Reytons definitely show that they mean business and the album and the band should be taken seriously and on their own merits.

Wheel, Resident Human

There are albums that test my time and patience in ways that frustrate me. And then there are those albums that pay big rewards for diving in deep. Wheel's Resident Human is the latter. It's a 50 minute epic album of mood and tone that can be intense, heavy, and at times dark and ominous as this Finish band with English frontman James Lascelle try making sense of the turmoil and emotional toll that the last few years have taken on us all. 

If this all sounds too much to handle, it's not. Wheel masterly moves from heavy and ominous to welcomingly melodic and quiet at all the right moments giving needed space for Lascelle, who sings with such intensity, the album, and the listener time to breath. It all makes listening to Resident Human absolutely captivating. Not since Tool's Fear Inoculum have a found myself so drawn to a prog metal album and I suspect that this will be the case for many others as well. This is one of the fiercest and most rewarding albums that I have listed to all year and it definitely deserves your time.

Sting, The Bridge

Sting needs no introduction so none will be given here. I will also make this my shortest album review of the year. I am a huge Sting and The Police fan. And while I think that he can do no wrong, I have not exactly loved most of his works(s) over the past decade or so. I will admit that 44/876 with Shaggy was and continues to be a guilty pleasure of mine. So what do I think of The Bridge? In my humble opinion, it's Sting's best album since Ten Summoner's Tales. 

Webbed Wing, What's So Fucking Funny

As someone who loves all things music and has a music blog, I'm usually in search of something new and different. But sometimes, I'm nostalgic for something familiar....especially something that fits squarely into the early nineties. Enter Webbed Wing. 

Over the past four years, Taylor Madison and his band, Webbed Wing, have been doing their part to keep that early 90's guitar-driven, indie pop-rock sound alive and relevant. Thank goodness! On their sophomore album, What's So fucking Funny, the band has elevated their game, tightening up and refining their sound while Madison hits a new level of songwriting, opening up and sharing his personal struggles over the past few years. In the hands of someone else, this topic might understandably weigh down an album and its songs. In the hands of Madison, this is not the case as he and the band wrap them up with uplifting melodies, great riffs, and a sound of hope.