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The Seldom Seen Kid Elbow There are few things in life quite so liberating as the opening track on an Elbow album--they're like airlocks between the plainness of the outside world and the elaborate melancholic heave-ho that you are likely about to submerge yourself in. Following predecessors "Any Day Now", "Ribcage" and "Station Approach", "Starlings" opens their fourth album The Seldom Seen Kid rising from a bed of...    Read More >>

Perfect Symmetry Keane Would it be outlandish to suggest that wholesome rugby-shouldered ruddy-faced English piano-pop boys Keane have spent the best part of their two-album career fanning the impression that they exist somewhere between an easy Mothers’ Day gift and the album it’s ok to give your girlfriend back when you split up, just in order to blow everyone out of the water like 80s neon-pop commandos with the boldness...    Read More >>

Forth The Verve Warning: the Verve’s wittily titled fourth album--the first since their reformation in 2007--is no Urban Hymns Part II. That much is clear from the album’s first single "Love Is Noise," a punchy-yet-addictive propulsive rocker, but it’s a fact underlined several times on the remainder of the album. Taking a determined stroll along the boulevard of experimentalism, the band mix up their...    Read More >>

Leaders Of The Free World Elbow Leaders of the Free World, Elbow's third album, sees the band try to beat down their major league contemporaries (Coldplay, Doves) with a more ambitious set of songs. In truth, they didn't need to try so hard; Elbow have arguably been making better and more interesting music than most of their mainstream compadres since they formed in 1990. That said, the results here are undoubtedly impressive...    Read More >>

Dig Out Your Soul Oasis Though Oasis are forever fated to live in the shadow of their initial success, they remain capable of producing exciting and touching music, and Dig out Your Soul continues the upswing in their fortunes sparked by 2005's Don't Believe the Truth. Unashamedly an album of two halves, the first part is heavily loaded with Noel Gallagher's tunes, including the pounding single "The Shock of...    Read More >>

Cast Of Thousands Elbow An astonishingly intense and ambitious album, Elbow's Cast of Thousands is relentlessly experimental. Having toiled for 10 years over their spellbinding Mercury-nominated debut Asleep in the Back, the maverick Bury five-piece--who were initially hailed as the new Radiohead--have produced a worthy sequel in a comparatively short two years. While mirroring their debut's melancholy tone,...    Read More >>

Parachutes Coldplay Music doesn't come more touching than Parachutes. With their debut single alone, the emotion-fortified "Shiver", Coldplay proved they could shift between elated and crushed in a breath as singer Chris Martin poured out music's oldest chestnut (unconditional yet unrequited love) with the shakiest of voices and a backdrop of epic guitars that rouse and tug at the heart strings. For 10 tracks on...    Read More >>

Asleep in the Back Elbow While it's tempting to position Elbow next to the sardonic likes of Badly Drawn Boy--mainly because of their proximity to the city of Manchester and their way with an acoustic guitar--Asleep In The Back, their frighteningly competent debut album, bears not the joker's smile. Instead, it comes straight from Manchester's simmering, ugly dark side--eleven tracks of rain-sodden misery, blown up...    Read More >>

X&Y Coldplay Coldplay were faced with a difficult choice as they set to work on X&Y. They could either follow Radiohead’s lead and use their enormous success and financial security as a springboard to a brave experimental future--or they could play it safe, repeat the tricks used on the 16 million-selling A Rush Of Blood To The Head, and consolidate their position as one of the biggest...    Read More >>

Scouting For Girls Scouting For Girls You miserable souls slagging off an enjoyable non-offensive mix of catchy pop tunes. Ok they're not likely to claim any Hall of fame honours with this, but EVERY song is catchy, listenable and makes you feel good - the singles particulary so. I sat in front of a 5/6 year old girl who knew every word of the three songs they played at the Capital Radio Jingle Belle ball, and at the age of 40+ I have...    Read More >>