Audio Vertigo
Elbow
Yeah. Elbow. There's something funny about this album. I've listened to it front to back maybe 30 times by now. And for some reason I still don't really know what to think. Don't get me wrong: I love it, but I really have to be in the mood for it.
The album starts out with Things I've Been Telling Myself for Years. It's not the strongest start, but for some reason it's necessary. It makes the transition into Lover's Leap so much more gentle. How this song sounds on my hifi system is absolutely incredible. There is this wall of sound that is very spacious but very tightly controlled, but this is not a hifi review, this is an album review.
Let me tell you a little secret about this album: I can't listen to single songs. I have to listen to the entire album every time. For some reason, in my brain, it doesn't work as a bunch of potential singles put together on an album. There is a flow, a story.
The next song (Where Is It?) isn't really a song. But it goes into what might be my favourite song on the album: Balu. A very strong song indeed and maybe the only one on the album I can listen to "standalone".
Very Heaven is not necessarily my cup of tea, even though there is nothing specifically I don't like about it. So let's go to Her to the Earth instead: this is an absolute banger. It starts out so incredibly silly, but once that bass line starts going, man I'm sold.
Honestly, I can go over every song on the album. But they're all good. It's just a very good, well-produced album. And not in the last place it's musically interesting and just a little different from the usual run-off-the-mill rock album. If we can even really call this rock, but I don't really know what else.
In short: it's a fantastic album.
