New album: The Take Off And Landing Of Everything
Artist: Elbow
Label: Polydor
Rating: 4 stars out of 5
During the first decade of the 21st century, Britain was popping out good-to-great bands like a busted Pez dispenser. Although they never received the hype of Oasis, Elbow were among the best of the bunch.
Their latest effort “The Take Off...” doesn’t stray far from what Elbow are known for: Sweeping walls of music topped off by Guy Garvey’s Peter Gabriel circa 1973 inspired vocals. Anyone doubting this comparison should compare the Genesis song “Looking For Someone” to “Lunette” from “The Take Off...”. Anyone pining for the Peter Gabriel-fronted version of Genesis should latch onto Elbow immediately.
While vocally and sonically Elbow pull generously from early-era Genesis, they get off the highway when it comes to arrangements. There are no 22-minute epics on “The Take Off....”, even though the obtuse album title suggests otherwise. A few songs creep over the seven-minute mark (the title track and “This Blue World”), but they never meander.
Even though Elbow are usually referred to as a “guitar” band, the slow, building pulse of “This Blue World” is driven by the tasteful keyboard work of Craig Potter. Potter shines throughout on “The Take Off...” and like Richard Wright of Pink Floyd and Tony Banks of Genesis, Potter isn’t a showboat. Rather, he creates textures and melody lines that pull all the facets of Elbow’s sound together while leaving room for controlled chaos.
It’s good that the guys in Elbow are serious about what they do, but at times they can come off as sad-sacks. Even when Garvey approaches something sort of like a love song with “Colour Fields,” it still sounds like he’s figuring out which bridge to jump off of. This kind of navel gazing would be a mortal sin if not for the inclusion of the darkly brilliant album closer, “The Blanket Of Night,” Potter’s spooky keyboards are so enticing on “The Blanket Of Night” you’d swear the spirit of Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek had taken over his body.
Elbow have managed to survive by making consistently good albums such as “The Take Off...” and their fan base should be large enough to sustain them. Most of this album is too dark and beautiful to compete in a mainstream pop market, but thankfully that’s almost gone so it doesn’t matter anyway.
Classic album: Malpractice
Artist: Dr. Feelgood
Label: Legacy/Columbia
Rating: 4 stars out of 5
Dr. Feelgood (the band – not the song you listened to while driving around the mall in 1989) formed in Britain in 1971. Their sound was dubbed “pub rock,” which basically meant blues-infused rock that people of questionably sobriety wanted to hear in bars.
“Malpractice” was Dr. Feelgood’s second album, and its sound and attack isn’t incredibly dissimilar to the first couple of albums by George Thorogood & The Destroyers: Echo-free drums, sleazy blues-rock riffs delivered via band originals and tasty covers of Muddy Waters and Bo Diddley, and zero desire to deviate from their tried-but-true formula.
Dr. Feelgood guitarist Wilko Johnson turns in several great tunes, especially “You Shouldn’t Call The Doctor (If You Can’t Pay The Bills) and “Going Back Home,” and his playing is driving and precise. Lee Brilleaux’s vocals weren’t incredibly distinctive, but his ebullient style was a perfect fit for the material. In the case of “Malpractice” Johnson and Brilleaux’s talents blended the best on Robert Parker’s “Watch Your Step” - a song Jimmy Page used as “inspiration” for the riff in Led Zeppelin’s “Moby Dick.”
While many of their blues-rock brethren were interested in groove, Dr. Feelgood attack their songs as if they were something that had to be dealt with. This jabbing performance style allowed the band to be corralled into the punk scene that would eventually make things really cute in England near the end of the 1970s. It’s hard to fathom a band that covered Huey “Piano” Smith could ever be lumped in with punk, but then again so was AC/DC for about 10 minutes.
“Malpractice” is a good slice of mid-1970s rock that pointed towards the sounds later made by The Clash among others. It’s evident that Dr. Feelgood never bothered with being considered an “important” band, they just wanted everybody to have a good time.
Jon Dawson’s album reviews appear every Thursday in The Free Press. Contact Jon at 252-559-1092 or jon.dawson@kinston.com. Purchase Jon’s latest book “Counterfeit Sauerkraut & The Weekend Teeth” at The Free Press office or jondawson.com.