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Elbow - Asleep in the Back
Send "Elbow " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
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Elbow emerged fully formed at a time when it may have helped their cause to be more malleable. Around the turn of the century, hailing from the British Isles and playing mid-tempo rock served as qualification to be "the next Radiohead," and even if Elbow got caught in that dragnet, they weren't quite as fresh-faced or brash as those now-laughably incompatible peers. Once that whole thing morphed into the search for the next Coldplay, Elbow weren't quite singles-minded enough to fit that bill either, and unlike Starsailor or JJ72, they weren't destined to be used solely as comic fodder for music reviews in 2009. True, they've carved out a pretty enviable career, but stateside I imagine someone right this very minute is confusing them with Doves. If Elbow did seem too mature for a new band, you can chalk it up to Asleep in the Back gestating for almost a decade. As such, it can be described in a lot of unsexy ways-- patient, stately, considered, professional. There's only one song that really qualifies as "rock" (though the menacing "Bitten By the Tailfly" is defined by its tension as much as its volume), half of the tracks top out at over five minutes, moving with cruise-ship luxury and tempo, and there aren't really hooks so much as "moments" where the restraint and attention to sonic detail build into an undeniable payoff. Now, talking about production is usually viewed as a backhanded compliment-- we should be talking about the songs, man... right? But as languorous as the tempos can be, Asleep in the Back is studious and hardworking, proof that modern albums can still sound luxurious. Despite minimal soloing and nothing in the way of tricksy time signatures, it strangely got tagged as "prog." It sort of is in the way Built to Spill's Perfect From Now On was "prog"-- constantly shifting textures and always sounding like it's headed somewhere. The dank bass and processed, dub-influenced drum sound that begins "Any Day Now" come off like a hungover transmission from Massive Attack's Mezzanine until the band opens the shades and lets the sun inside (to cop a quote from Cast of Thousands' "Ribcage"). Two bright and major-key chords repeat throughout the track's six minutes with unease, breaking down for an a cappella mission statement: "How's about getting out of this place... got a lot of spare time, some of my youth and all my senses on overdrive."...full text |
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| Nme |
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Hooray! Manchester has delivered its first great album of the millennium. Others will doubtless follow, but few will conjure up magic as brooding as Elbow have here. Peering back through the musical mists of time one can see a thread of majestic melancholia that links Talk Talk to Doves, and that passes through Radiohead and The Blue Nile along the way. At the end of the thread liesElbow. 'Asleep In The Back' is more than merely the sum of its influences, however: it delivers beautifully woven songs with a tender, insightful panache far beyond many. Inaccurately belittled elsewhere as a prog group, Elbow have instead done what so many groups struggle to achieve. They’ve made an album that works as one solid body. From the murmured Nowheresville desperation of 'Any Day Now' and its hypnotic organ grind through to the piano-rich nostalgia of the final 'Scattered Black And Whites', Elbow create an atmosphere of universal intensity. To do this they use a lot of different techniques and a lot of different sounds, but this doesn’t make them prog. It’s simply that rarest of gifts: originality. You can hear this creativity at work as 'Bitten By The Tailfly'’s soft-focus atmospherics are blown apart by guitarist Mark Potter’s scratchy new wave hook. Or when singer Guy Garvey hails the gift of life on 'Presuming Ed (Rest Easy)' over the most regal and dreamlike of keyboard riffs, or when a saxophone suddenly joins 'Powder Blue'’s mournful procession of melody towards the song’s climax....full text |
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| Stylusmagazine |
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About four years ago I would have been unbelievably excited at the prospect of Elbow, a Manchester 5 piece being heavily hyped and compared frequently to Radiohead and Jeff Buckley. They would have been the combination of my dreams- all I had been looking for in a band. Admittedly teenage cynicism is at its height now, but the fact that I was filled more with apathy than anticipation when I heard about the group now is also linked to having been fooled too many times. Fortunately, Elbow have bucked the trend of letdowns emphatically by producing one of the best debut albums of the last five years. The tone of the album is set by its opening line; “What’s got into me?” murmurs Guy Garvey over the hypnotic “Any Day Now”. It immediately promises escape “Any day now, how’s about getting out of this place?” is the droning chorus, but this place explained in the lyrics is not as depressing or dark as it initially seems. Ten years in the making, this is a bruised and battered LP, but one that always offers hope. The band supposedly bonded over U2 and The Red Hot Chilli Peppers, however the influence of neither is particularly apparent. These days the label “Prog” seems to be used as an insult to Radiohead, but Elbow wear it on their sleeve with pride and, in doing so, have found a sound that is unlike almost anything else in the current market. Few bands could get away with using saxophones in the way that Elbow do in the finale to “Powder Blue” without sounding pompous or overblown. There is, however, a tightrope they walk for much of the album. Sometimes they fall, as professionals are prone to do. “Bitten by the Tail Fly” is probably the most unaccommodating track, its disjointed nature incorporating new wave and whispered poetry is an intriguing, but ultimately unsatisfying effort. What makes this album a success, though, is the balancing that Elbow does to stay firmly on that tightrope....full text |
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