Binding: Audio CD
EAN: 0602517640986
Label: Polydor Group
Manufacturer: Polydor Group
Number Of Discs: 1
Publisher: Polydor Group
Release Date: March 17, 2008
Running Time: 56 minutes
Studio: Polydor Group

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Disc 1:

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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Editorial Review:

Amazon.co.uk Review:
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 tumbling electronic subtlety like a depressed Atari game loading up, adding bare touches of piano, glimpses of ambient guitar, out of body background vocals, an understated pulse and a wisp of strings, before--EXCELSIS!--a fanfare avalanche of horns crashes the gate and elevates things to gasping palatial heights, before Guy Garvey's inimitable gravel tone and wrenchingly poetic reinterpretations of the everyday announce their arrival proper. It's astonishing, by far the most progressive moment on the album and if anything it sets the bar too high. But even when the pace dips, and songs like "Mirrorball" and "Weather to Fly" don't distinguish themselves quite enough, their textural peerlessness remains. This is a beautiful sounding record. Their collaboration with Richard Hawley may be more of a curiosity than a thing of beauty, but the highs, the riffing cross-stitch of "Ground for Divorce", the desolate grandeur of "The Loneliness of a Tower Crane Driver" and the enlightened string-laden anthem "On a Day Like This" (like their own Sound of Music--only substitute the Alpine peaks for a Manchester high-rise) number amongst the best of their career. --James Berry




Rating: - Words, word, words...
...like water shouldn't be squandered so I'll keep it brief.

The least good album by a marvellous band whose output gradually returns less and less impact (listen to this alongside Asleep At The Back with decent ears and you'll know what I'm bleating about)...

...but despite this, a slightly diminished Elbow record rains filth from serious altitude all over any band they might be compared to. Why they aren't outselling Coldplay's brand of bland public school nyamming ennui ... Read More

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Rating: - Heavenly...
With "The Seldom Seen Kid" Elbow continue their healthy track record of making wonderfully emotive music coupled with quite appalling sleeve art. Guy Garvey's voice still continues to pierce right through the heart with that heavenly falsetto he occasionally wields (that presumably umpteen cigarettes cannot dent). Almost irrespective of what he is singing about it all sounds utterly gorgeous.

This album, perhaps more so than the others, is not initially quite as immediate. I've found ... Read More

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Rating: - 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??

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Rating: - 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 ... Read More

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Rating: - 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 ... Read More

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