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Elbow: Audio Vertigo review – rhythmic, rousing reinvention conceals dark humour
The band’s 10th album incorporates African and South American rhythms and instrumentation alongside Guy Garvey’s darkest, funniest lyrics for years
The particularly innovative Lovers’ Leap races through samba-style percussion, darting strings and a rolling bass line, before an electronic glam stomp leads into a gorgeously Beatles-y coda. Elbow: Audio Vertigo album art.Elsewhere, the playful Balu is driven by horns and a Wurlitzer-style keyboard melody while the more turbulent Good Blood Mexico City has something of the National at their most epic and dramatic. On success, he sings: “I haven’t paid for cabs or beers / Or met a cunt in 20 years / Like all that outrun poverty / All I have was coming to me.” The superb Knife Fight, meanwhile, is based on an incident he witnessed in a cafe in Istanbul.
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