Whether by accident or design, Elbow seem like the quintessential British rock band right now. As has often been noted, these five Mancunians sound like either a more experimental Coldplay, or a less experimental Radiohead, depending in which direction you approach them from.
They take the fundaments of contemporary British alt-rock - self-conscious normality, the courage to be emotional, a mournful way with 'proper' songwriting - and make something hypnotic, occasionally transcendent, out of them. They're a little pretentious, but always careful to be so in a shrugging, offhand way. A little weird, but never so much that the lads will be freaked out.
By rights, Elbow should be pretty annoying, the same kind of lardy, overblown and overrated band as their compatriots Doves - singer Guy Garvey even looks like that band's Jimi Goodwin, in a certain light. Yet there's something rather haunting and affecting about 'Cast Of Thousands', just as there was about 2001's 'Asleep At The Back', which raises Elbow far above most of their peers.
At first, 'Cast Of Thousands' seems flat and routinely melancholic, but it's the constancy of atmosphere - that relentless faith in the magical possibilities of the dirge - which gradually wins you over. The opener, 'Ribcage', is the first to ineveigle its way into the subconscious: whispered threats and agonies (something about "pissing in their champagne" crops up early); distant deep space probe bleeps; hints of Spiritualized and Talk Talk, the latter a recurring touchstone; a Gospel chorus who demand, with pleasing incongruity, we "let the sun inside".
Soon enough, the whole album starts working on multiple insidious levels, and details emerge out of the precisely-constructed gloom. Jarring squalls of guitar that punctuate the torpor of 'Snooks (Progress Report)' and the outstanding 'I've Got Your Number', mixed so loudly they'll send you scurrying to check the levels on your stereo. Seasick strings that provide an unsteady backdrop to 'Fugitive Motel'. 'Buttons And Zips', an unusually realistic sex song that sounds, with its distracted folk strum and subtle, spacey effects, like a morose Badly Drawn Boy.
The way 'Not A Job' ambles into a motorik rhythm, purposeful when you least expect it. And, of course, the massed crowd chorus recorded at Glastonbury 2002 which sings "We still believe in love, so f*ck you," on the hymnal 'Grace Under Pressure' - a grandiose stunt which still manages to be genuinely moving.
Now and again, there are moments which remind you of the lucrative but largely unappealing world Elbow move in, chiefly 'Switching Off', one of those songs seemingly designed to placate conservatives who feel Radiohead let them down after 'OK Computer'. Nevertheless, 'Cast Of Thousands' is an album which works very hard to be significant, then slowly casts a spell so that it becomes, if not quite epoch-defining, at least an enormously satisfying 50 minutes. Very, very crafty.
