i love elbow.

and i’m not talking about the body part.

looks like we’re having déjà vu all over again…

yes, in fact, just a few weeks ago, i was raving about the new track—lippy kids—from elbow’s forthcoming album, build a rocket boys!, due out on march 7th.

earlier on various british radio stations, the band premiered the album’s first single, neat little rows, which is set to release on february 28th.

whereas lippy kids was a bit of an extension of the atmospheric sound of 2008′s the seldom seen kid, neat little rows takes a different route, turning up the guitars and drums. in some ways, i view it as a commercial counterpoint to their breakout song, grounds from divorce from the aforementioned the seldom seen kid. the sound is a considerably different, but like grounds, it likely represents a little bit of a sonic anomaly relative to the rest of the album (as hinted at by lead singer guy garvey in a couple interviews). whether or not it’s representative of the rest of the album or not, the tracks’s really great and offers another angle of elbow’s repertoire.

in an interview with xfm, guy garvey said that the new album will return to some of the bands roots, as explored in their debut album, asleep in the back. with more emphasis on grooves and percussive leads, playing larger venues like arenas was a big consideration in the production process.

for the track neat little rows, particularly, garvey offered some thoughts on the song’s inspiration.

About Ryan Byrd

ryan feels kinda weird writing this little bio for his own website. i mean, honestly, you can probably draw whatever conclusions you'd like from reading his blog posts. as a matter of fact, here's a little exercise if you have a few spare minutes. grab a piece of paper and a pen, jot down 3-4 sentences that could be a bio for ryan and drop it in your mailbox. thanks in advance!

• Bobby Harrison says:

  01/17/2011 at 4:27 PM

  Ryan –

  Just stumbled across your page. This other site was featured on the WordPress homepage today (http://thewesgazette.wordpress.com) and I recognized Pinnacle. So I found myself trying to find out who this person was…and that led me to your site. Anyway…I’m on staff with Middle/High School ministries at Fellowship North in NLR.

  Love me some Elbow and have for nearly 10 years. If you haven’t heard the songs NEWBORN or GRACE UNDER PRESSURE…stop what you’re doing right now and invest the time!

  Love what you’re putting out there. Would love to grab lunch sometime and talk music and ministry.

  Take care.

  Bobby Harrison

  Reply
  • ryan says:

    01/18/2011 at 12:09 AM

    glad you found your way here, bobby, and good to find a fellow elbow fan. we’re few and far between around here. yes, i love both the songs you mentioned.

    by the way, we have some mutual friends. bryan and sarah beth jones are friends (via twitter). i also know a couple other fellowship north people.

    i’d love to do lunch sometime. i’ll shoot you an email.

    Reply
• Darcie says:

  01/18/2011 at 11:11 PM

  I’m a more recent Elbow fan, but I very much appreciate updates/info/whatnot.

  Merci.

  Reply