Pegging Elbow's sound is tricky, and not just
because its members once unhelpfully referred to themselves as "prog without
the solos." Image-wise, they seemingly strive to be as nondescript as possible.
They're "anthemic," but nothing like U2 or Doves. They're gloomy, lyrically
self-loathing Brits, but not nearly eccentric enough to be Radiohead. They're
genre-compression machines — their fourth studio album takes unexpected
cues from tango—but they'll never have the flamboyance of David Bowie or
Beck. Elbow is just a band of smart, dedicated musicians whose expansive songs
work through lush instrumentation and diffuse structures to build ballads
without hooks, midway between Tindersticks' gloom and Guillemots' flamboyance.
Quintessential repeat-listen music, The Seldom Seen Kid's instantly perceivable
sonic frills give way to solid but not stolid songs: Tango or Led Zeppelin, it
all gets folded into an instrumental density few bands can match, in the studio
or otherwise. As ever with Elbow, the album is too long, ever ready to make
room for more lush melancholy. But beneath the superficial drabness and gloom
is a band as diverse as any of its flashier contemporaries
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