After nearly 25 years together, sensitive Northern blokes Elbow remain a very big deal in Britain, finally hitting the big league off the back of Mercury Prize-winning 2008 album The Seldom Seen Kid and its anthem One Day like This.
This one comes after 2011's Build a Rocket Boys!, an album not short of grand gestures from the outfit who, despite occasional prog-rock comparisons, have always arranged themselves tastefully around - or more accurately behind - frontman Guy Garvey, a chap with a big woolly warm hug of voice to match his big woolly face and his literate lyrics. And on this, they seem to be doing that restrained thing even more on an album of 10 songs that may not produce the sort of phone-waving wattage of its predecessors.
But it still delivers plenty of moments where the combination of Garvey's ruminations and the airy keyboard-led, unhurried music deliver something genuinely uplifting.
There's plenty of that positive surge to New York Morning - a swirling ode to Garvey's new city of residence since splitting with his long-time partner - complete with Yoko Ono reference.
On Charge, Garvey, whose Lippy Kids was a highlight of the last album, is again saying wry things about the young folk ("Glory be/ These ******* are ignoring me/ I'm from another century"). But there's nothing much comfy and drearily middle-aged about the rest of this. That's whether it's doing slow hymnal things on the lovely My Sad Captains or finally building up a head of steam on the late arriving title track.
