Elbow’s music rolls like a Manchester Limousine. Beautiful on the surface yet intricate and clever if you care to look deeper. And if you do, well, the journey that you go on makes it all worth it.
A debut that is not an actual debut and an opening track titled Any Day Now. No-one can say that Elbow do not have a sense of humour. Asleep in the Back was re-released in deluxe form at the end of October this year and a fanfare is as deserved today as it was in 2001 when it was first released.
Asleep in the Back was on the Mercury Shortlist in 2001, but did not win. They would return to put this right with Seldom.
This was the second ‘debut’ that the band recorded, after previous material was scrapped when their record label dropped them. There was also an EP, Noisebox released in 1998 and 2000. This can be found for mega money on the internet, but handily is available in the new Deluxe Edition of the album, along with some live tracks from the Astoria and a BBC Radio One live set.
Given to Sounds 