The beginning of the new Elbow album, The Seldom Seen Kid, is rather jarring - the opening track arrives in a cacophony of instrumentation and then alternates between gorgeously undulating sweetness and startling, abrasive horn blasts - making it impossible to find a volume that offers a comfortable middle ground. In fact, on my first several trips through the record, I found the harsher parts of "Starlings" so.... harsh that I kept the volume low and barely noticed the song.
So how did "Starlings" become my favorite song on The Seldom Seen Kid - a difficult feat considering the wealth of great music on the album? Well, I finally turned up the volume and paid attention to the words. Strung between those abrasive blasts of sound, floating upon the crest of undulating sweetness, are lyrics that melt me into a romantic puddle:
How dare the premier
Ignore my invitations,
He'll have to go.
So too the bunch he luncheons with,
It's second on my list of things to do.
At the top is stopping by
Your place of work and acting like
I haven't dreamed of you and I
And marriage in an orange grove.
You are the only thing
In any room you're ever in.
I'm stubborn, selfish and too old.
I'm normally not the doe-eyed, sappy kind of listener that likens music to poetry and only cares what's being said - often I'm more susceptible to a particularly heart-wrenching melody or even just a well-placed key change than a series of words. But sometimes when I'm listening, the lyrics will slowly drift up to break the surface and - wow - suddenly I'm girly goo. And if "you are the only thing in any room you're ever in" didn't do it for me, the last line of the song - a quietly posed "darling, is this love?" - completely seals the deal. Yes, Elbow, yes it is.
"Starlings"
So anyway, if you haven't noticed - this is my attempt at revisiting Anticipation, the mix I made back in February when I was looking forward to a number of early 2008 releases. Of the ten albums I mentioned in that mix, I hadn't heard eight in their entirety at that time, and I plan on stopping to talk about each and every one of the eight now that they're out in some form (I believe Guillemots is the only one of the bunch that isn't out stateside, but it is available as an import).
As for the rest of The Seldom Seen Kid, which is out today on Geffen in the U.S. - I think it's one of my favorites in the list (although I have a feeling I'm going to keep saying that, as I skip from album to album). It's certainly one I've been spending a lot of time with - I seem to listen to it obsessively for a day, then put it down and come back to do the same thing a week or two later. It almost feels like I'm excavating the record... slowly but surely digging deeper into the songs, just like I did with "Starlings." But that doesn't mean it's growing on me slowly - everything sounded wonderful to begin with, and repeated listens just mean the songs start to reveal themselves a little more, strike a more familiar chord.
The verdict? I think I'm going to continue spending quite a bit of time with The Seldom Seen Kid this year. The album is a little slower than I expected after initially hearing "Grounds For Divorce" (one of my favorite songs so far this year, hands down), but it's beautiful and multi-dimensional and I'm thinking very, very hard to get sick of. Absolutely recommended.
"Weather to Fly"
