Elbow: Asleep In The Back

By RUSSELL BAILLIE

(Herald rating: * * * * )

Vying for Britain's Mercury Prize against the likes of Radiohead, Basement Jaxx and Turin Brakes, the debut album by Manchester outfit Elbow probably won't be troubling the bookies too much.

But that doesn't stop this being a beguiling album worth discovering, one of those peculiarly slow, sad, quietly dramatic albums that can leave you feeling both exhausted and exalted.

Close in spirit and atmosphere to the (much-recommended) Doves' Lost Souls album of last year, and also reminiscent of English 80s moodists Talk Talk (currently getting the revival treatment via those Xtra ads), Asleep in the Back is a lushly arranged affair without being overblown.

It offers a sonically detailed blend of singer Guy Garvey's Peter Gabriel-like voice, limpid vocal harmonies, a jazzily-propulsive rhythm section, electric guitars which throb with tremolo while acoustic ones do stylishly English folk-rock things, and that is all given a hefty coat of strings, organ, piano, electronics and the occasional saxophone section.

If, on songs like Red, they might be pegged as a slightly more mournful, cloudy-day Coldplay, tracks like Bitten by the Tailfly show the sort of power Elbow can muster. The song manages a slow-fused explosion from its claustrophobic beginnings to its fireworks ending ignited by a spot of Joy Division slash'n'burn guitar along the way.

While the acoustic-powered shimmer of Newborn (starts off shades of the Blue Nile, goes mad at the seven-minute mark), the delicate Powder Blue, and the Nick Drake-ish final track Scattered Black and Whites show there's a compelling dreaminess to much of this, there's a hint of grim reality in Garvey's lyrics and the occasional nightmare around the corner. Recommended.

Label: V2