77. Elbow - "Audio Vertigo"

Another non-metal entry. “Seldom Seen Kid” and that bloody song will always be an albatross for the arena bothering Mancunian miserabilists. It was a zeitgeist that launched a thousand montages and made Guy Garvey an unlikely household name and national treasure.

They have diligently continued making records (some better than others) but have always struggled with where they go next musically and how far they stray from that anthemic style that become their payday. With “Audio Vertigo” they have put their big boy pants on and tried to do something different.

This is a funk album, it shakes its booty and has a rhythmic afro-beat feel to it. It seems happy to play with convention and dispense with a reliance on communal garden time signatures. Guy seems intent on throwing off his shackles of respectability and his lyrics are more subversive and dryly funny than they have been in years. Rather than a return to form or past glories this is a distinctly left-hand turn into unknown pastures and the sound of band not yet ready to become a nostalgia machine churning out the hit.