Elbow Room

Man, I am slipping. One of my favorite Brit bands, Elbow, has had a new disc available on iTunes since September 27th, and I just discovered it today. Granted, the physical CDs won't be released in the U.S. until October 18th, so technically, I haven't really missed the release date, but the fact that I didn't even know they had something new in the pipeline worries me. Am I slipping in my old age? Luckily, I was clued in today by two things: an ad in the latest Paste magazine, and a glowing review from Frank at Chromewaves. Since he and I seem to have similar taste in music, I downloaded Leaders of the Free World right away. I haven't gotten through much yet, so the jury's still out on whether Frank's effusive praise was warranted, but so far so good. One thing I agree with right away: the Peter Gabriel influence is front and center on this disc, especially on the third track, "Picky Bugger." With a little reworking of the backing instrumentation, it would fit right in on a number of Gabriel solo albums.

Frank's Radiohead comparison also prompted me to do something I've been thinking about for a while: complete my Radiohead collection, which meant finally purchasing Kid A, Amnesiac, and the live disc, I Might Be Wrong. All three discs have some good songs, but mostly listening reminded me why I was so happy to hear Radiohead's compass point swing back towards a more traditional rock sound on Hail to the Thief. I still maintain that had Radiohead combined Kid A and Amnesiac, they could have produced one great album and had some solid B-sides left over.