Album Review - The Take Off and Landing of Everything - Elbow

My first experience with Elbow wasn't even with Elbow, it was Counting Crows. They weaved Elbow's Lippy Kids into their own Rain King during a live show. The track was then released on Echoes of the Outlaw Roadshow. From this brief interlude of music I was drawn to Elbow, and proceeded to get their 2011 release, Build a Rocket Boys!, from whence Lippy Kids came. That record left be breathless. It in some very small, but meaningful ways, changed my life. It remains one of the most beautiful records I have ever heard. Along their 2012 release Dead in the Boot, Elbow has become a band I listen to daily, sometimes solely for days on end. So, needless to say, when Elbow announced they were making another record, I couldn't wait for the release day. I waited patiently for several months for the March 3rd (digital) release. I didn't immediately download it when the day came around, as I was in Austin for SXSW, and knew I'd be getting new music there, and thus and wanted to wait until I got home to fully immerse myself in the new Elbow. However, this didn't work. I couldn't wait anymore. I broke down and got the record on 3/10.

Over a month later, this record is still hitting me in just the right places. It's one of those records that keeps you thinking, keeps the songs in your brain for long after they are over. These are songs that stay with you, and that's one of the best things a song can be. Aside from being on of my new favorite songwriters, there's just something about singer Guy Garvey's voice. I find it soothing, almost calming, yet bold and powerful at the same time. It may also have something to do with the fact that he's British (I have always had a very soft spot for the Brits.) I have found it tricky to precisely describe Elbow's sound to people who haven't heard of them, but Peter Gabriel and Coldplay have come to mind, while some songs are almost Smiths like, in the best way possible.

The Take Off and Landing of Everything is the band's sixth studio album, and much like Build a Rocket Boys! before it, is packed with ten of the most listenable, mood-changeable, uplifting, depressingly wonderful songs one could ever hope for. The melodies and harmonies are some of the best I've heard in a long time. This is a record that almost requires being listened to with headphones, very loudly, as to block out any outside distraction, in a quiet room, just to take in all it has to offer, all the emotion that these songs will put you through. For me, listening to this record, even now, over a month later, is still a welcome musical journey into my soul.

The album takes you from the soft, welcoming melodies of "This Blue World" to the more guitar laden, jaunty "Fly Boy Blue/Lunette" and "Charge", to the superb vocal back and forth of "My Sad Captains" kind of gives you the feeling of rocking back and forth, like on a boat. The title track, "The Take Off and Landing of Everything" samples music from "With Love" from Build a Rocket Boys! while keeping the integrity of the new album. The song has a catchy rhythm and feel to it, but you can feel the deeper meaning of its words the more you listen to it. "Colour Fields" has a sort of 80s synth pop feel to it, bringing in hints of the band's Peter Gabriel influence.

I think though, for all the brilliant words, notes, sounds, feels on this record my favorite track is "New York Morning". "New York Morning" is the first song I heard off the record, a few weeks before it's release, it's the song that told me that Elbow had done it again. I can, and have, listen to this song over and over without thought of anything else. The aural masterpiece worms into every sense you have. You can almost see the song as it plays in your ears, smell the streets of New York, feel the crisp autumn New York air on your skin. Just hit repeat and experience the song over and over; turn it up, close your eyes, become the song:

The First to put a simple truth in words
Binds the world in a feeling all familiar
'Cause everybody owns the great ideas
And it feels like there's a big one 'round the corner

Antenna up and out into New York
Somewhere in all that talk is all the answers
And oh my giddy aunt New York can talk
It's the modern Rome and folk are nice to Yoko

Every bone of rivet steel
Each corner stone and angle
Jenga jut and rusted water tower
Pillar, post and sign
Every painted line and battered ladder building in this town
Sings a life of proud endeavour and the best that man can be
Me I see a city and I hear a million voices
Planning, drilling, welding, carrying their fingers to the nub
Reaching down into the ground
Stretching up into the sky
Why?
Because they can
They did and do
So you and I could live together

Oh my God New York can talk
Somewhere in all that talk is all the answers
Everybody owns the great ideas
And it feels like there's a big one round the corner

The desire in the patchworks symphony
the desire like a distant storm
For love
Did it come from me
'Cause it feels like there's a big on round the corner

The way the day begins
Decides the shade of everything
But the way it ends depends on if you're home
For every soul a pillow and a window please
In the modern Rome where folk are nice to Yoko

There are bands who I have discovered accidentally who quickly become a big part of my music life. Though their discovery may not have been completely accidental, Elbow is one of these bands. I'm excited to see them live in May in Portland, Oregon, and excited to see what they have in store for the future.

Remembering Dave Lamb (Brown Bird)

It's not that I really knew Dave Lamb of Brown Bird. I'd only meet him and MorganEve Swain twice at shows in Seattle and Spokane. But they were the first band I met from all the bands I got into after discovering the Outlaw Roadshow, and they were the first band I wrote about for the blog. Dave was always super nice each time I met them, even giving me a shout out from the stage the time I saw them in Seattle (I had driven out from Spokane for the show.) Though they technically weren't friends, I still referred to them as such, and it's hard when bad things happen to good friends.

Just under a year ago, Dave Lamb was diagnosed with Leukemia. He fought the hard fight, but on April 5, 2014 he lost the battle. For as sad as this made me, I can't even imagine what his family is going through right now. Sure, they knew going in that this may happen, but no one is ever really prepared for someone so young passing away. Dave Lamb is the only person I've ever known in my age bracket to die. It's kinda weird for me to think about.

Dave was an amazing person, musician and songwriter. His brand of Americana Folk was a refreshing thing to discover. I instantly fell for Brown Bird's music after I heard their song "Fingers to the Bone," from 2011's Salt for Salt. For being a two-piece band, they have the sound, heart and soul of a "full" band. Salt for Salt is now one of my favorite records, and their follow-up record, Fits of Reason is amazing as well, showing the duo's musical evolution. I can't say enough about how much I love the music, and even though I really didn't know Dave, how much I will miss him and the music.

There's a track on Salt for Salt called "Bilgewater," which is one of my favorite songs. There's one bit of the song, a couple lines, that have meant so much to me, and helped get me through some stuff, and I'm grateful to have it in my life:

"when everyday’s like a war between the will to go on

and a wish that the world would spiral into the sun

turn your head toward the storm that’s surely coming along"

But there is one line from that song that I've sort of adopted as a personal mantra of sorts, one line that now that I have it, I don't think I can give it up:

"have the strength to know you’re wrong

and when you’re right the strength to stand your ground"

Thank you Dave Lamb for all the music. You will be missed.