Music reviews

Elbow The Best Of (Polydor) ★★★★ Elbow is a band very much from the Radiohead - read, English - school of indie. The Mancunians specialise in dreamy, melancholy numbers with a grand sweep, and The Best Of picks highlights from their esteemed career. The album stretches back to their Newborn EP debut from 1999, and up to this year’s popular Little Fictions release. Highlights include early hits Newborn, Lippy Kids and recent favourite Magnificent (She Says). The new track, a cover of The Beatles’ Golden Slumbers, is a tad pointless but pleasant nonetheless. Elbow aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, but if it sounds like your sort of thing The Best Of is a good place to start. – Jack Barlow ★★★ Last year was a prolific one for this indie-pop quartet from Malmo¨. About a year into their life as a band, they’ve released an album, toured widely, and have followed up with this four-track EP. Like many of their Swedish compatriots – ABBA, The Cardigans, Ace of Base – they have the ability to mix shimmering pop with an undercurrent of minor-key melancholy, and this duality keeps things interesting. Of particular mention is lead singer Caroline Landahl, whose gently exhaled falsetto trills above a bedding of Johnny Marr-like guitar jangling. Rest is the best track on offer, and would sound perfectly at home as the score of a cinematic TV ad – catchy-but-unobtrusive, sitting politely in the background, smiling sadly at you. – James Cardno