Review Summary: Hallelujah, buy us a pint
The greatest impact that Justin Timberlake’s recent
Everything I Thought It Was has levied against the world has been a return to the inevitable question that happens whenever an older star’s shine has dulled: is the lack of support from ageism? It’s not. Rest assured, that album sucks, but I do think there is the potential to wring some semblance of discourse from that tired PR Hail Mary by acknowledging that there is a conversation to be had about the passage of time and how artists choose to age. In Justin’s case, his inability to square his boyish veneer of vulnerability with the circle of, well, anything tangible after years of very public moments that could have been ripe for introspective material.
Getting old is not an excuse for getting bored.
This little nugget of wisdom seems to be something that was told at the eleventh hour to The National, who nearly got away with another clunker in
Laugh Track by sneaking in “Space Invader” and “Smoke Detector” -two of their best songs in years. That band of Sad Dads (ugh) have become long in the tooth because they let their depressive ethos calcify into a hamster wheel of boredom that can only suggest a feeling rather than inflict it. The rare moments of brilliance in their later works suggest a frustrating ability to conjure gold when they want to, and to contact Phoebe Bridgers when they don’t -but who wants to grade on a curve? Judas Priest and Iron Maiden are still rocking out as if nobody told them the 80’s ended ages ago, and David Bowie even managed to put out one of his finest achievements with cancer sieging his body. Resignation is not an inevitability as history piles up, it is an option. Fury and grace are as well.
Thankfully, Elbow have chosen the latter on their tenth studio album,
AUDIO VERTIGO. Rather than play into that title’s suggestion of some weird or off-kilter direction, the band have actually gone the opposite direction: energized, centered, and considered. The closest thing to a left-hook here is the sheer amount of groove and electricity on offer after a string of relatively chiller (even for them) affairs. “Lovers’ Leap” slinks around with an infectious bassline and a hypnotic brassline with the sort of athletic ease that can only come from decades under the belt. “Good Blood Mexico City” is one of the most upfront tracks the band has ever conjured, treading dangerously close to post-punk and will surely be a live staple for years to come. Even if an old dog can’t learn new tricks, it can at least try on new clothes.
With that in mind, Elbow make their money here the way they always have by dialing things back and letting their deceptively simple songs do the haunting. The name of the game here is time and one’s place in the world as the band eyes the other side of 50. “I can read people, yeah,” confesses frontman Guy Garvey as the first “thing” on “Things I’ve Been Telling Myself for Years”. Yes, the self-effacing middle-aged loathing schtick litters the record (“My days are shapeless now/I’m something of a sacred cow” on the hilariously macabre “Balu”), but it is thankfully played with the knowing wink that could only come from a mature understanding of one's own faults.. Still, the band is unafraid of sounding human, delivering an effective one-two punch of late night ashtray “Poker Face” (“There’s only so many corners in any size of town/forever braced in poker face for the one you come around”) and the quietly triumphant “Knife Fight” (“Even when we communicate disastrously/I want you, I love you, I need you/Hallelujah, buy us a pint”).
To reiterate,
Audio Vertigo is not likely to convert anyone to Elbow’s brand of mostly-mellow soft rock. At ten albums and nearly a quarter century in, you do mostly know what you’re going to get going in. Thankfully, that also includes Elbow’s commitment to quality songwriting. This is a good album for a band as deep into their career as Elbow, but it’s also worthwhile even without that qualifier. The band aren’t getting any younger, but they are getting wiser and, dare I say, more fun.
