Giants Of All Sizes

The 8th album from Elbow was recorded at Hamburg’s Clouds Hill Studio, The Dairy in Brixton, 604 Studios in Vancouver and Blueprint Studios in Salford with additional recording taking place at various band member’s home studios spread across Manchester. As with their previous four studio albums, ‘Giants’ was produced and mixed by Craig Potter. Guests across the album include Jesca Hoop, The Plumedores and South London newcomer Chilli Chilton.

Guy Garvey describes the album as “an angry, old blue lament which finds its salvation in family, friends, the band and new life.” It is a record that lyrically takes in moments of deep personal loss whilst reflecting its times by confronting head-on the spectres of injustice and division not just in the UK but across the world. It is a record that could only have been made in the 21st Century.

Given such bleak, if ultimately redeemed, subject matter, it is also, perversely, the most relaxed record which elbow have made in some time. On ‘Giants of All Sizes’, each band member extended their usual process of working on demos alone and followed their vision to its conclusion rather than, as Craig Potter puts it, ‘taking the edges off things to find compromise’. In tandem with this, they returned to playing live in the studio, encouraged to experiment with the banks of analogue equipment at Clouds Hill in Northern Germany, giving songs a looser, more live feel.

1. Dexter & Sinister

2. Seven Veils

3. Empires

4. The Delayed 3:15

5. White Noise White Heat

6. Doldrums

7. My Trouble

8. On Deronda Road

9. Weightless

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CR628yT7aE