Listen up pop pickers and listen up good. Which one of you pesky kids stole Bearsuit's Ritalin? ADHD is not a safe way to produce music. Too much happiness. Too much energy and not enough restraint or control can have a severely detrimental effect on everyone's health.  Hyperactivity as a musical source of energy channelling sounds like this-someone is going to get hurt. Think those Yeah Yeah Yeahs kids having consumed the best part of China's entire stock of blue Smarties or those Gorillaz before puberty hit them and they got serious and mellow. This is the noise of children who will never grow up and why should they when such joy and rapture is their output.

*KAPOW*, music to watch old skool Batman by, oh what whimsy and such folly. Nine tracks clocking in with an overall total of 24.8 minutes, you kinda can guess what to expect. Rapid-fire doesn't even begin to describe the rattle and roll of this one. If Formula Bone have hit your musical radar-o-meter thingamajig then chances are YOU will HEART this bad. You dirty adrenaline junkie. You need this don’t you. One garage racquet UKFC spazzcore band just isn't enough for you now is it? Well your drug of choice has a new variation on the block, with a street value that you can't put your grubby tobacco stained finger on. A health warning should be a prerequisite of every single track that drips bounce and shizaam like it's going out of style. 'Team Ping Pong' will leave you feeling emotionally and physically drained and reaching for the kettle or whatever your vice may be.

Truth be told, this ain't my cup of tea but (and here is the clincher), it isn't awkward to listen to. I can happily see myself returning to this record, if only to dip into for a quick pick me up. It is a garish experience, a Mardi Gras on plastic with added kick, like the kid at junior sports day who spends his day drinking Lucozade Sport coz his Dad told him it would make him run faster, I guess by extension, I'm also saying it will make you wanna pee. 'Fears of Moonpilot Ben' has the distorted bass line of early day Idlewild which we all know and hold in such high esteem as their better stuff. The syrupy female vocals bring order to the random chaos that the instrumentation regurgitates out at breakneck speeds. The delightfully titled 'I Though You Said You Were Blind' is a slower offering that's just what the record needs. A Graham Coxon/TV Personalities (Circa 'I Know Where Syd Barrat Lives') vocal is complimented with Belle and Sebastian levels of woodwind which is a joy to be part of and leaves you longing for more. Fantastic Plastic really have bagged themselves a find and a half here. "Bring some oxygen to save our lives" is the childlike plea on 'Hey Charlie Hey Chuck' before it hits meltdown and overdrive and distortion and doubled up vocals with a smothering of plips and beeps. This is like a Flaming Lips style story unfolding with such affection and charm all you can do is sit pretty and happily doing such a thing. A gorgeous and accomplished affair that will grow into the hearts and minds of a nation. On second thoughts, don't give the kids their Ritalin back or they may just end up making a record as dreary as James 'Patron Saint of Bland' Blunt and we don't need anymore of that now do we. *WHOOSH*

Review by James Ainsworth
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Many Birthdays is a fascinating home-recording/art-project from Austin, Texas.  Their superb 3rd album: 'Sub Rapid Express' is housed in a stylish, shocking-pink card sleeve.  Similarly, the music is shockingly good.  Band members Doc and Kiki blend Beck Hansen's slacker-pop-cool nous and Ladytron's superlative icy detachment to great effect.  The music 'a sonic diary of time spent living/working near Osaka, Japan' possesses the skittish menace of latter-day Radiohead.  This is twisted, subterranean electronica travelogue perfection.  Dreamy.  Hypnotic.  Brilliant.

File under: Pure, beautiful noise.  

PS. You can purchase 'Sub Rapid Express' through Many Birthdays' website.  All proceeds go to the American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund.

Review by Tom Leins
www.manybirthdays.net
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'Beyond Entertainment' is the new sampler from highly-regarded North West collective Akoustik Anarkhy.  A mixed-bag, sure enough, but there are some great new bands in their midst.  Personally I'd take a short-cut to The Longcut and their mammoth, throbbing punk-funk groove; or Harrisons and their top-drawer boisterous indie-pop; or Autokat and their edgy Factory Records-inspired 'The Driver'.  Elsewhere Soft Priest provides busy, playful electronica 'ideal for anyone who misses Bentley Rhythm Ace's car-boot-sale techno; Jack Cooper cuts loose with a blast of sixties-infused beat pop and Nine Black Alps offer-up a lightweight-but-enjoyable nu-grunge radio friendly unit shifter in 'Over The Ocean'.  Although Sam & Me, Yacht Club and Pierre Hall are a little too twee for comfort, there's still plenty to keep you entertained.  Here's to Anarkhy in the UK!

Review by Tom Leins
www.akoustikanarkhy.co.uk
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BC Camplight lives in the mind of 25 year old Brian Christinzio.  Now, luckily for us, (thanks to One Little Indian) it lives on CD as well … Brian has played the piano since he was 4, and his main influences include George Gershwin, Burt Bacharach and Todd Rundgren.  At it's reliably-fey best it echoes the superior lounge pop of the High Llamas (with brief splashes of Beach Boys fun thrown into the mix).  At its worst it resembles an easy-listening version of The Thrills.  Almost.  Engaging in places, but ultimately a little too soporific to care.
Says Brian: "I was never the cool kid, but the cool kids liked me."  I'll let you cool Joyzine kids decide for yourselves whether you like him.  This particular cool kid isn't saying too much - apparently Brian used to be an amateur boxer.

Review by Tom Leins
www.bccamplight.com
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Obviously, before you listen to the Black Velvets, you've got another name in your head: the real velvets, the Velvet Underground, although what you’ll be hearing is more Velvet Revolver. I don’t know if that disappoints you. This band seem to have caught a lot of attention lately and at summer festivals, but all the same I've got say: the singer reincarnates an awesome Bon Jovi/David Lee Roth white rock hybrid and it's scary.  These are ballsy ballads that could quite happily pack out bars across the country, but their lyrics are more bluff and compromise than rebel yell. On the first track I Won't Lie Down Slash's Snakepit on a lazy day- the refrain goes: I won't lie down (do I hear a fuck yeah?), before amending it to:'…unless I'm wrong.'This line fills a good minute at the end of the tune, so the band must be pretty proud of their call-to-arms, although it doesn't do it for me quite as well as 'fight for your right to party!', or 'you won't fool the children of the revolution', for example.  Get On Your Life scores gonzo-rock points with a title that makes no grammatical sense, but doesn't carry through the promise with opening bars that are a blatant nod to Foo Fighters Times Like These crossed with a bouncy melody ripped from Harvey Dangar’s Flagpole Sitta without replicating either the former’s redemptive spirit or the latter’s deadpan psychosis. 
           
Once In A While straddles bland ooo-wahs of 60s pop music, between bellowing another one-line chorus; by which time- track 3- the band are just sounding confused about who they most what to sound like.  Not All the Time – another throw back to the era when chorus and title where interchangeable- goes on: “I need you by my side/But not all the time.” Jesus, what a dilemma. This sounds like a song about a girl you sort of like, but not really. For 3345 they discover an English accent (which is actually natural) and choppy rhythms for what appears to be a song about their PIN number. Up to this point, I’ve been patient, I’ve been listening, but as most songs remind me of some other classic rock radio staple that I haven’t heard for a while, I’ve generally been stopping mid-track ‘til I know if it’s White Snake or Poison I’m thinking of. I don’t think most bands would love it if their gig devolved into a (very entertaining) night of Name That Tune. Although I don’t think the Black Velvets would be milking it enough if they didn’t have one video on the helicopter pad of an aircraft carrier and at least one other ‘darker’ song filmed in a strip bar. 
           
Maybe it's wrong, but I am an unabashed hair rock enthusiast. Possibly because I don't needhairspray or back combing to create that 1985 look in the morning, or possibly because it's a load of fun and has spawned some decent stuff. However, as tempting as it must be for bands with any ability and a Les Paul to write their very own tributes to those that inspire them, listening to it, you can only get so far before you want to be hearing someone else. The Black Velvets fail themselves when you realise that the singer's ad-libbing extends to a few 'oh yeahs' and some over-dubbing before the drummer decides to end it for all of them. After a few tracks, the band isn't pulling very much out of the bag and they miss out on the better staples of the genre they're aping: using twiddly high register guitar solos, top boxes and heaps of cymbal. So why buy Black Velvets when you’ve already got Livin' On A Prayer to satisfy your needs? 

Review by Alice Coates
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            Y a-t-il de l'eau sur mars? (Is There Water On Mars ?) beginning this album from international duo Franck Marguin and Geoffroy Montel is reminiscent of the spaced-out desert music of the Pink Floyd soundtrack to La Vallée. La Vallée, however, was set in the rainforest, so oops, but this is still very much music that grows out of a mark on the horizon.  Tracks here average at a good five minutes per tune, so you're looking at painstaking effort on each little book of pictures.

Monoball is a duet between a computer and what sounds like a Japanese school girl (but probably isn't). There's a bit of Air's How Do You Think It Feels? about the whole thing, a tone that's readopted for a lovely cover of Kings of Convenience's Winning a battle, losing a war to greater effect. It makes popcorn noises sound like a sweet little love song, with longing, love-making, the whole bit, whilst Monoball should simply finish earlier.  Globally Yours layers some lovely twanging guitar over shimmering violins and that popcorn sound again.  The thwacking beat and twang combine with a voice that sounds like the singer from the Waterboys makes it a great bit of 80s throw-back without having aged.  Les lois ne mentent (The Rules Don't Lie)takes the haunted feel of Y a-t-il….and pushes a noise like signal interference over this drifting sound that's lost in a big space. Not unlike a futuristic 'Theme From Southern Comfort'.  Mutilé de guerre (Mutilated by War) utilises la chanson française and has the usual crooning over a clarinet but whilst the popcorn still gets a look in, the singer, entirely in French this time, laments the negative changes brought about by war, treating the individual as the global. In fact, this album plays so close to your ear in many tracks, that the global is extremely personal whether you like it or not. However, at 8 minutes, the dour refrain gets a little ponderous. Je suis mort is much more the kind of French song that pleases foreigners. The kind that serves up images of smokey jazz bars with breathy vocals, sunny acoustic guitars, smooth as a Gaulloise, yet it may still end up advertising furniture in the UK.

Another highlight Demon Lover (She's A) returns to a traditional song structure and gives in to a fat bass line swinging worthy of something Sugarhill records would put out. The demon lover of the title is a girl that leaves her 'flat dressed like a teenager' and so the lyrics descend into deliciously sleazy entreaties to 'please come into my room (she's a demon lover) Please come into my song (she's a demon lover!),' in an excellent accent only just hitting the pronunciation of English words in the right spot.  Taut guitar rift-ending would make it perfect for a Nightrider theme song substitute. Song-writing gold I tell you.
           
Whilst dragging over this like it's wet outside and no one's at home it is worth looking at En forêt, a tune whichswings suddenly to an outdoors theme and sound, crackling like a cicada in the ear before it seems like you've been pushed underwater and held there. I both recommend and warn you off from listening to this on headphones for the sense of claustrophobia, which is increased by sudden garbled phrases, one thrown over the other (talking something about birds….?) and then out of the blue-green comes some organ, proper top-of-the-cathedral organ chords.  This is tension and dramatis that Goldfrapp only hints at in their radio-friendly work, fashioned out of growing sounds, ones that seem to grow over and eat one another, they create songs about death, inertia, alienation and fear.

The sounds formed during In the Forest only become weirder and more watery on Juste avant l'orage (Right before the storm) making this a little like a soundtrack to a kidnapping, don't just assume it's all naturey from the titles. There is something going on here with whispers, desperate screams (Est-ce que tu ne m'aimes plus de bout?/ Don't you still love me deep down? Tu ne m'echapperas jamais/ You'll never escape me) ecstasy and rushing, crescendoing, coming out of an uncertain distance making a threat an incomprehensible delight.  Ah yes, this is songs about kidnap. Or possession anyway.  It may not be necessary to understand the lyrics- which admittedly could cross the line between subtle and clunky if they weren't protected by effects- so effective is the impression of being permeated from all sides by this wrongfully delicious mix of noise. Juste avant l'orage is a luscious 8 minute finale that dares to challenge the rest of the album for intricacy.  And still it ends somewhere peaceful…as the beginning, minus the popcorn. So after ten tracks of slightly uncomfortable/bemusing/amusing listening, you feel like you've been dragged through one big loop of obscure undergrowth and non the wiser for it. Excellent.

Review by Alice Coates
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            From the opening fuzz guitar sling of 'Sister Love' to the looping close of 'Candy' Jackie O's debut album 'Between Worlds of Gods and Whores' sets out to press gang you, fill you with liquor and touch you up before leaving you in the alley behind which ever bar they found you in. Dark, brooding, preaching their sleaze blooze gospel from the same pulpits as Jon Spencer and apocalyptic balladeers such as Nick Cave they come on like the Birthday Party smashing Kevin Shields repeatedly in the face out the back of a Supersucker's house party. 'Silver Low Rider' is relentless, throbbing and filled with all the menace of the sound of glasses smashing and pool cues snapping round closing time on a Friday.
           
This is music to fuck to. This is music to touch to, there's dirt under these fingernails. Lynchian scenes flash across barroom TV screens. You can taste the blood in each kiss. Drums cascade over the opening to 'Hellzapoppin!', angular guitars slash straight for the jugular, and a million bars reverberate to the sound of the night. This album leaves you revelling in the filth and the fury. One for the road and a wink from the barmaid.

Just when you thought it was safe to hit the next whiskey bar!

Review by Jonathan Sebire
www.jackieo.org
www.skinnydogrecords.com
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This third full length from Wrath records faithful The Scaramanga Six sets its stall form the off. But whilst there may have been some initial resistance, by the time I hear 'They used to call me the poison pen' screamed down my ears for the sixteenth time, like a vitriolic banshee hurtling towards certain death I'm hooked.
           
Soul filtered through filthy rock and roll sleaze all the way via balls out Stooge-esque punk, The Six take elements from as remote as Herbie Hancock and Spiritualised straight through The Hives and all the way via Prince on uppers. 'The Poison Pen' has me chastising the repeat button for having the audacity to hit it every time when it knows damn well I want to hear that again! But then when the next track features grooves as dirty and down right funky as 'Pincers' it's hard to know which way to turn. The cacophony of joy created throughout becomes slowly irresistible, so much so that whole songs seep back into the conscious throughout the entire week. Nurse The Screens!! To say this defies classification is to duck the challenge! Like the Rev Horton Heat possessed by the spirit of The Supremes and put in a blender with Lemmy references can't keep up with every twist and turn, and ultimately lie useless and discarded across the floor. Moments take me back to early Morphine records which sets my heart racing. These gospel tinged punk/rock and roll songs beat the hell out of any amphetamine based rush I've indulged in, the energy tangible even through my redundant discman headphones. Join the flock son, you will be saved!

Review by Jonathan Sebire
www.thescaramangesix.co.uk
www.wrathrecords.co.uk
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A compilation of many great acts, representing a wide variety of approaches and styles, yet managing to create a unified feeling of unplacable melancholy. This is a great compliment to the people at Club AC30 that they managed to mould such a cohesive unified whole out of so many divergent acts.
To use the term stand out tracks detracts from the mood of the piece which is of an album rather than compilation, all the same Suzanne by Air Formation manages to both attack and sedately muse coming over like a resigned Jesus and Mary Chain full of dying feedback drenched guitars and deadpan vocal drawl, The Agony of Saint Theresa is both sultry and bleak, expertly combining acoustic guitars with electronic sound manipulation, then there are the many more sparse numbers than combine hope with defeatist dejection, such as Andrew Kenny or audiotransparent.
The air is one thick with the bleakness of an post-Industrial City in the January rain, yet ridiculous hope still bursts through, especially witnessed in When The Sun Hits by Trouble Everyday which manages to shine from behind its grey veneer, and warm your heart, no matter how cold and forgotten it feels.
Maybe fans of The Arcade Fire, My Bloody Valentine and Interpol would be best advised to dip their toes into the murk, but really anyone who feels a bit empty from time to time is pretty sure to find a soul mate amongst at least one of the acts.
Essential listening for this Winter.

Review by Daniel Newman
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Fear and loathing in Sunderland …

The manic second album from North East Brit-rock foursome This Ain't Vegas sounds like The Futureheads playing Russian Roulette with At The Drive-In!  Indeed, This Ain't Vegas have been spawned by the same contemporary North East post-punk scene as notables such as The Futureheads (and Maximo Park).  However, This Ain't Vegas offer a more shouty, transatlantic version - with shades of credible Emo types like Taking Back Sunday and Rival Schools present in their brew.  Across the album, throaty, urgent singing blends with edgy post-punk guitars over a bed of great, distorted grooves and a sense of barely-concealed threat.  Increasingly hectic, 'Don Benito' twists and twitches in all of the right places, and, although the quality wavers occasionally, this is a post-hardcore pop skirmish worth joining in with.  It's probably been said before, but I'll say it again - there must be something in the water up there.

Review by Tom Leins
www.jealousrecords.com
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Ricky were undoubtedly one of the music industry's success stories of 2004. Sheer determination, effort and no little talent saw the band's self-released single hit the national charts and the accompanying debut album receive a four-star review in Q magazine. Now signed to 'Beat Crazy Records', their debut release for the label, 'Stop Knocking The Walls Down', saw the band crash into the Top Forty. Following on from this, Ricky's second album promises to further cement their position as one of the UK's most promising guitar bands.

'High Speed Silence' is undoubtedly a major step-forward from that debut album. Recorded on a shoestring budget, the album focused primarily on Ricky's love of 1960's West Coast Americana through its glorious three-part harmonies, 12 string guitars and catchy hooks. By comparison, 'High Speed Silence' reveals a band intent on broadening their musical horizons. Although the trademark three-part harmonies are still easily detectable, they have been mixed with the more contemporary sounds of the Brit-pop era. 'Easy On You' and 'The Kick Inside' are prime examples of this subtle, but important shift as they set anthemic choruses and melodies to an Oasis-like wall of guitar sound. Particularly successful is the album's second single, 'That Extra Mile', as it distils all Ricky's influences and blends them together with their own modern take on them. With its uplifting brass section and huge chorus, it is the most perfect summer single since The Boo Radley's 'Wake Up Boo'.

'High Speed Silence' is a record that aims to challenge any lingering notions that the band can be written off as being one-dimensional. The results are a little mixed as although the ballad  'Windblown Alley' and the string-laden 'Speculation' are spectacular successes, 'Pretend' falls just short of conjuring up a Neil Young inspired country-tinged number. Ricky's weakness is that by wearing their influences on their sleeves, they occasionally tread a fine line between originality and predictability. Although 'Sonny Barger' demonstrates the effortless ease with which the band can turn out a stunning melody, it's a song that is a little too much in debt to The Thrills, and frankly, Ricky are better than that.

With its confident swagger and potent mix of catchy pop tunes, 'High Speed Silence' is the sound of a band that is able to take many classic influences and blend them together to create a sound that is refreshing and unique. Their ability to tap into the sort of sound and feeling that has catapulted bands like Oasis to huge success, while retaining a certain distinctiveness is what marks the band out as one to watch out for.

Review by Nick Quantrill
www.myspace.com/thebandcalledricky
www.rickyonline.co.uk
www.beatcrazy.co.uk
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As a general rule, tribute acts are a waste of time and should be left for the less discerning music fan; The Prellies are the exception to this rule. The Beatles' musical cannon has been pored over and analysed to the point that there is little left to say. However, that'd be wrong as The Prellies explore a hidden corner of The Beatles musical legacy.

The Beatles, along with many others, fused rock 'n' roll with rhythm and blues to create a hard rocking 'beat' sound. Crafting this in the clubs of Liverpool and Hamburg, John Lennon remarked that this period saw the Beatles finest work, as they were first and foremost performers, not the freakshow that their live performances ultimately saw them become. Named after the amphetamines that got The Beatles through their punishing eight-hour shifts in Hamburg, it is The Beatles legacy as rock 'n' rollers that inspires The Prellies.

'Afternoon Tea With The Prellies' offers an insight into how wild the Merseybeat scene was as well as being an exciting rock 'n' roll record within its own right. Taking its cue from what can be seen as the first ever punk rock record, 'The Beatles: Live In Hamburg' and choosing from a large pool of material, the eleventracks that make up this record are split between tracks subsequently recorded by The Beatles and less-known beat classics.

The CD kicks off with an enthusiastic reading of the obscure, yet genre defining 'Shimmy Like Kate'. With an exuberant beat laid down by the rhythm section, throat-tearing harmonies and jagged guitar riffs, it's the perfect whistle-stop introduction to the Merseybeat sound. Although the live recordings that exist are evidence that The Beatles were undoubtedly a fantastic rock 'n' roll band in this formative period, their subsequent recordings of such material was not flawless. It is here that The Prellies show their mettle as they go someway to addressing this. 'Roll Over Beethoven' crackles with energy and impressively improves on the more recognised, though much more sedate, Beatles recording. It's not all wise choices though as The Prellies also suffer from erratic choice of material. While it must tempting to tackle the raucous  'Twist and Shout', it proves to be a low point as there is no way that they can come even remotely close to matching, never mind bettering, the definitive reading that is the Beatles version. It's also a mistake, as the ethos of the band seems to be to draw attention to the 'beat' scene as a whole. On 'Twist and Shout' they sound little more than a regular, albeit faster version of any number of Beatles tribute acts.

'Afternoon Tea With The Prellies' is breathing new life into possibly the only neglected area of The Beatles story. They do this in some style through this record and their high-energy live shows. Although they are tackling material that is almost 50 years old, it has being dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century with a new freshness and vitality. This CD rocks harder than most contemporary material, and if you want a fix of rock 'n' roll, then look no further than this record.

Other essential Merseybeat resources:

Music:
The Beatles:
'Live In Hamburg' (Although now deleted, a CD of these live recordings from 1962 can be obtained easily through Ebay).

The Big Three: 'Live At The Cavern EP' (The hardest rocking band in Liverpool. Undoubtedly the finest Merseybeat recordings readily available.)

Books:
' Twist and Shout' by Spencer Leigh (The most comprehensive and detailed account of the Merseybeat scene available).

Review by Nick Quantrill
www.theprellies.co.uk
www.atombeat.com
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You may have noticed of late that accents are cool. Nasal fricatives and glottal stops are the new Queens English. Everyone loves Ant and Dec, many people go crazy for the dulcet tones of Peter Kay and as far as music goes, less rounded pronunciation can be heard from the likes of Maximo Park, Editors and The Futureheads to throw up a clutch of bands who are regional and proud. When was the last time you heard MC Trevor McDonald or a beaty up-tempo four-piece with the vocal conviction of Moira Stewart? Its just not now, conjecture would hypothesise on music being the working class mans outlet and social status bringing out the musical expression as a form of escapism from the surroundings in which one is raised; yet this is not the place for such reasoning. I have digressed. Clinical and succinct is all that is needed. Guy Garvey has not restrained his warm, Northern vocals. While on their debut album 'Asleep in the Back', suppression of an accent may have been intended, here can be heard 'luv and trrrust' amongst others in all its Northern Soul glory. It is this sense of warmth and homeliness that suits the grandeur of the instrumentation on this record. It works; it just works people.

While 'Asleep in the Back' had it's less accessible moments and for want of a better description, it's out there kazoo, smashing glass and irksome leftfield moments and 'A Cast of Thousands' was a more rounded fluid affair, 'Leaders of The Free World' is a much more silken and cohesive construction. Each track more listenable and more agreeable than the last. For those whole adore the exquisiteness of 'Red', 'Newborn' and 'Switching Off' moments of Elbow past, immerse yourself in the rawness of 'The Everthere' For the discerning up and at 'em Elbow moments, one is eagerly directed towards the stomping 'Forget Myself' single and the lilting piano build up album opener 'Station Approach'. For all out delicate orchestration and grandeur with layer upon layer of crafted genius and gumption, all the while maintaining a stripped back sense of simplicity, all is present and executed in the title track of the album.

Guy Garvey is simply more than a miserable git who churns out aches of despair that resonate and cause hairs to stand where hairs cease to exist. Guy Garvey is more than a man who can conjure up the darkest, hollow and expressive sentiments. He is not a one trick pony. Having helped produce Editors debut effort, it is easy to pigeonhole, given such aspersions. The bloke just has a knack, a gift, a talent a purpose to emote so effortlessly about situations. 'I drink until…my speech is a gas leak.' Conveys the sentiment of rejection and despair in 'An Imagined Affair' for true bitterness that the world can identify with yet not articulate, Elbow offer up 'Mexican Standoff'. A truly uplifting spirited track that carries with it the trademark percussive construction that distinguishes Elbow from any other prog-indie band. Lyrically bitter and emphatic; 'I'm not superstitious but if I can get this ball into the basket then he'll wake up dead' Whoever this chap is, he sure must have stood on Mr. Garvey's toes real bad.

This album omits such a warm amber glow in to the ether, entwines your soul with soft worn-in tweed and sentiment. For those with more pennies in their pocket or with a 'downloading is naughty' conscience, please; I implore you, part with the extra pennies for the Special Edition package which contains a DVD.  A DVD 'bonus' with an album rarely is anything special at all. A few sketchy camcorder videos and the inclusion of the big budget promo video for the singles and maybe an interview offering about as much insight into the band as a Heat magazine expose. This DVD is not the above. This DVD is a true joy and creative work of genius from The Soup Collective. An equally dark and rich tapestraeic construction that befits the morose musical offerings which happily details and elaborates on the themes of every album track and more through animations, intimate live and studio footage. As a stand alone DVD this delicacy would be worth your hard earned cash and more.

While not as accessible as say Coldplay or Doves etc, Elbow are a hard working, fun loving bunch of Mancunians that create such awesome music that goes so unnoticed by the masses, it is unearthing. The intelligence of composition found in their work puts many bands to shame. Never samey, never bland, never making music as a chore. All hail Elbow and their affability and their warm morbidity which will be your favourite and most comfortable of scarves this autumn season.

Review by James Ainsworth
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