1. Starlings
2. The Bones Of You
3. Mirrorball
4. Grounds For Divorce
5. An Audience With The Pope
6. Weather To Fly
7. The Loneliness of a Tower Crane Driver
8. The Fix - Elbow, Richard Hawley
9. Some Riot
10. One Day Like This
11. Friend Of Ours
12. We're Away

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This Is Beautiful.
4.5 stars actually. 5 if slightly more ambitious. For example, the long ending of One Day Like This sounds too formulaic. (Like Paul McCartney?)But anyway, it's the most beautiful album in a few years, which makes me to write the first album review in a few years.
It is a great wonder how something that reminds me of Coldplay can still sound distinguished from Coldplay. Does this mean Coldplay could have been a much better band than now??


Album of the summer? Year more like!
Some people are claiming this to be the album of the summer but having listened to them and bought it. They're are wrong! It's more like the album of the year! There are some big titles to come out later on in the year though so maybe I'll eat my words...

SSK is an instantly likeable album - no 'you'll come to like it' going on here. No weak tunes in the 13 strong tracklist and at last we have an album this year that isn't short.

It's my first Elbow album and I'll be sure to check out their previous work now.

Best Yet
Perhaps the first Elbow album that starts to transend groups of music lovers?. People have often wondered why Guy Garvey et al have not become as widely acclaimed as some their peers - this album may start to answer some of those questions. Every other Elbow album has been a grower and sometimes are such a treat that you cannot listen all in one go - an acquired taste perhaps...... SSK combines a string of songs that I defy anyone with the faintest of music taste not to appreaciate (I forgive and do not care about that ever growing band that seem to worship that American R&B vs Gansta Rap vs Diva (Rhiannon / Mariah) trash that is flooding our market at the moment). Whilst I am not going into specific songs Elbow have finally released an album that will be loved by so called 'mainstream' fans of Coldplay (they/we are not a bad bunch by the way) to us more obscure group of traditional Elbow fans. To sum up - the best album of the noughties (yes - that good) and their most most 'mainstream' album to date - that is not a bad thing as it may finally bring this great, great band the recognition they deserve.....

Want to try something new?
If you are looking to 'branch out' and try something new then give this a go - I cannot recommended it enough.
I'd heard of Elbow but never bought any albums until now (foolish I know!) - this is just simply stunning. Before you know it, you won't actually want to stop playing it - it is a very thoughtful, hypnotic yet calming album.

Try it - you will not be dissappointed.

Short-listed
What can I say that's new ? I agree with the majority of the reviews here ... this is a superb album. Play it several times and you'll find that there are no 'throw-away' tracks - each and every one of them is good enough to be an A side ( terminology from my early years )had we still been in the EP era.
Today, it's been announced that it has been short-listed for the Mercury with the panel "heaping praise on Elbow for having produced 'an epic rock album' with their 4th album".
I guess crowd members at Glastonbury, who Guy encouraged to assist 'throw those curtains wide'( yea, the 'Ikea song'! ), would agree with 'epic'

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