Music

While it’s unwise to think of musicians as soap stars, one can’t help but feel relieved that following the heartbreak of Elbow’s last album, salve has arrived for chief songman Guy Garvey. And, not only that, but in the most delicious way possible: the surprise of finding oneself in love, the heart not only healed but newly thumping and glowing.

Throw petals in the air then to the sound of album opener, ‘Starlings’, a gentle serenade that sputters suddenly into life with gleeful blurts of brass. Similarly, gospel number ‘One Day Like This’ arrives like a frilled red Valentine, with its great swathes of strings and an invitation to fling open the curtains.

No one wants a three-course meal of puddings, however, and this sweetness finds its counter in ‘Grounds For Divorce’, a thudding, boom-clap, fuck-you blues holler and ‘The Fix’, a sultry, spaghetti western-toned duet with Richard Hawley. But it’s in subtlety that Elbow really soar – that mix of Garvey’s smoky blue voice, Elbow’s understated, spacious arrangements and unexpected, curveball chords – evidenced here on ‘Mirrorball,’ and in the terrible beauty of ‘Some Riot’, which could goosebump a sumo wrestler in a sauna. After an achy cold winter of the heart, what a way to welcome the spring.