Leaders Of The Free World

Leaders of the Free World, Elbow's third album, sees the band try to beat down their major league contemporaries (Coldplay, Doves) with a more ambitious set of songs. In truth, they didn't need to try so hard; Elbow have arguably been making better and more interesting music than most of their mainstream compadres since they formed in 1990. That said, the results here are undoubtedly impressive and may form the band's best work yet. Beginning with the beautiful, slow-building "Station Approach", and ending with the short but touching "Puncture Repair", Leaders of the Free World takes in an a host of minor classics along the way. From the captivating strums of "Picky Bugger" and the sonorous chimes of "The Stop" to the massively captivating title track and the funereal waltz of "Great Expectations", the record's elliptical nature only adds to its enchanting qualities. If this doesn't confirm Elbow's status as superior musicians/arrangers and underline Guy Garvey's abilities as a master storyteller, nothing will. --Paul Sullivan

Elbow. Still singing about how great it is up north...

With Leaders Of The Free World Elbow graduate to the elite group of Great British bands who we're lucky enough to have around at the moment. Along with Radiohead, Super Furry Animals, Supergrass and Doves they consistently make great albums that entertain and innovate.

"Station Approach", "My Very Best" and the title track are multi-layered, passionate songs, which despite their downbeat demeanour, always calm and captivate the listener. Guy Garvey's beautiful vocals tell stories of coming home, broken relationships and disappointment.

Every bar of every song is meticulously performed. Garvey talks of how he had a huge amount of work to do to make sure his lyrics were worthy of the songs the band had written.

A colossal noise that still fits in your pocket. --Jack Smith

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Leaders Of The Free World was recorded and produced by the band at Blueprint Studios in Manchester through late 2004 and the start of 2005 with additional mixing by Tom Rothrock at Sunset Studios in Los Angeles and Marius De Vries at Olympic Studios in London. Leaders Of The Free World is the Manchester indie stars' 3rd studio album which is a completely collaborative project between the band and film-makers/animators/visual artists, the Soup Collective. Features 11 total tracks including the first single 'Forget Myself'. V2 Records. 2005.

Leaders of the Free World is the third studio album from Elbow and was released in 2005. It was entirely self-produced at Blueprint Studios in Salford, Manchester a space the band hired for the duration of their recording sessions and has been described as a love-letter to Manchester.

The deluxe edition of the album features a bonus disc of radio sessions and live performances. It includes fan favourite "McGreggor" (the video of which is one of the band’s favourites) and features a movie put together by previous Elbow collaborators the Soup Collective. After a year living in the roof of Blueprint studios with Elbow and a host of friends dropping in with pens, pencils and cameras, the result was a collections of films, part documentary, part animated monster and part performance, the movie encompasses the working and development of the full album.

STANDARD EDITION : Glorious 2005 album of emotive pop 'n' soaring rock outta Manchester! Includes "Forget Myself".