• Voto:
Gli inglesi Elbow sono uno di quei gruppi che non appena scopri sei portato a pensare: " bravi questi... ma come mai li sto conoscendo solo ora?" Immediatamente dopo realizzi che è anche una di quelle band che meriterebbe più attenzione.
Asleep In The Back è il loro folgorante debutto datato 2001. Probabilmente si tratta del loro migliore lavoro (sebbene i due successivi siano comunque di livello) e, nel panorama pop-rock, in assoluto uno dei migliori esordi degi ultimi anni, quantomeno insieme a quello degli Arcade Fire e degli Interpol.
Che musica fanno questi Elbow? Qualcuno ha trovato delle affinità con le varie band pop-malinconiche d'oltremanica ma penso che si farebbe un grossolano errore nell'accostarli ai Coldplay piuttosto che agli Starsailor. A parere di chi scrive gli Elbow non solo sono più dotati dal punto di vista compositivo, ma risultano di certo più eclettici: ad esempio tralasciano spesso la classica forma-canzone prediligendo brani più lunghi della media. Aggiungerei che sono più bravi dei colleghi sopracitati nel dare una fisionomia a ogni canzone con degli splendidi arrangiamenti. Semmai non si direbbe un'eresia nell'affermare che questi ragazzi, pur avendo una propria identità, hanno recepito e metabolizzato la lezione dei Radiohead, specie quelli di "The Bends" e di "Ok Computer"
L'introduttiva "Any day now" è uno dei pezzi più originali del lotto; probabilmente un pò anomala all'interno della loro produzione, siamo comunque di fronte a una grande canzone: ipnotica, ammaliante e giustamente reiterata; la successiva "Red" focalizza meglio l'"essenza Elbow": un pianoforte, degli archi e una puntuale batteria spianano la strada a una toccante melodia sorretta dalla splendida voce di Garvey.
Il punto più alto dell'album si raggiunge però con "Powder Blue": capolavoro assoluto da inserire fra i migliori brani degli anni Duemila. Pensate a una "Paranoid Android" meno schizofrenica; bellissimo il piano e azzeccatissimo quel sax appena accennato in chiusura; echi crimsioniane si insinuano nelle orecchie dell'ascoltatore. Impossibile non lasciarsi conquistare: chapeau.
Degne di nota anche "Newborn", coraggioso singolo con i suoi sette minuti e mezzo, e la seducente "Coming Second" dall'atmosfera cupa e sinistra. L'album si conclude come meglio non si potrebbe con "Scattered Black And Whites": sognante e dolcissima ballata valorizzata da un arrangiamento a dir poco calzante.
Come tutti gli album di valore Asleep In The Back ha bisogno di più ascolti; inizialmente potrà anche risultare un pò ostico, dopo però vi conquisterà.
Caldamente consigliato.
Elenco tracce testi e samples
02 Red (05:11)
Come as you are, sweetheart
Come as you are
You know you've got nothing to prove
I'll put you to bed you can let it all go
You've been playing too rough lately
You burn too bright
You live too fast
This can't go on too long
You're a tragedy starting to happen
Just as you are, perfect
Just as you are
I'll give you the time you deserve
Don't make those promises
Don't tell me again
That dust is gonna settle your nerves
You burn too bright
You live too fast
This can't go on too long
You're a tragedy starting to happen
You burn too bright
You live too fast
This can't go on too long
You're a tragedy starting to happen
03 Little Beast (04:15)
The whole towns slippin down a hill.
Like the spine of something dead.
Slide in shadow cobble-creep.
Burn your mark and leave.
The trench conventions yellow eyes
Follow her the local flower
The girls a priest (to me at least)
Since baptism peroxide.
And fear is not respect. Correct.
But it's the best you're gonna get
Sharp blow to the bridge of the nose
Sharp blow and anything goes.
04 Powder Blue (04:30)
Your eyes are just like black spiders
Your hair and dress in ribbons. Babycakes
In despair or incoherent. Nothing in between
China white, my bride tonight
Smiling on the tiles
Bring that minute back
We never get so close as when the sunward flight begins
I share it all with you
Powder blue
Stumble through the crowds together
They're trying to ignore us. That's o.k.
I'm proud to be the one you hold when the shakes begin
Sallow skinned, starry eyed, blessed
In our sin
Bring that minute back
We never get so close to death
Makes you so alive
I share it all with you
Powder blue
05 Bitten by the Tailfly (06:18)
You're a girl in this vicinity
I'm a dog without a collar on
This cattle-market cabaret
Is the Sabbath every Saturday
I'm full of wit and chivalry
Until you've given in to me
I'm a dog without a collar on
You're a girl in this vicinity
Bitten by the tail-fly
Too many times to change
It's a silent taxi ride away
But it's everything to get you there
You'll know when you are bitten-shy
But still you will return my stare
From a crush of blushing brides-to-be
You barely have a blossom on
Your eyes betray your diaries
You're a girl in this vicinity
Bitten by the tail-fly
Too many times to change
I'll take you home
Get you on your own
06 Newborn (07:36)
I'll be the corpse in your bathtub
Useless
I'll be as deaf as a post
If you hold me like a newborn
Whisper what you feel
My badly strung declaration
To You
You'll spend the end of your days
Gently smiling like a newborn
Love not by degrees
Press your lips
To my eyes
Taste my tears
On your tongue,
Pull the blinds
Play our song
Nothings changed
Nothing could be wrong.
Scream in the night
Kick and skrike
Like a newborn
Holding me shaking
Awake in the dark
All of these promises
Kept and unbroken
Tracing the scars
Tracing the scars
Even and cold
As we both become older.
Your arms bound about me
The hush in your voice.
The warmth of your fingers
Entwined around mine
In the eve of our lives
Never a choice.
07 Don't Mix Your Drinks (03:16)
Don't mix your drinks
Don't mix with him
It will kill you one day
Good advice, sound advice
Why can't you be
Like him, like me
Look what you could achieve
I'm coming cap in hand
Begging you to listen
Something draws me in
And I just can't christen it
Just can't christen it
Don't mix your drinks
Don't mix with him
It will kill you one day
Good advice, sound advice
You need to be
Like this, like me
Look what you could achieve
I'm coming cap in hand
Begging you to listen
Something draws me in
And I just can't christen it
Just can't christen it
08 Presuming Ed (Rest Easy) (05:26)
My brother fear is only natural
You need to chill your fucking bones
Lay her down, drink this ...
while you can
whisper rest easy
there's a belly full of life
watch her she's dreaming
of a belly full of life
right there on the pillow
this is why we are here
rest easy
You will feel Christ-like
When it's breathing in and out
Right there on the pillow
This is why we are here
Rest easy
This is why we are here
This is why we are here
Rest easy
09 Coming Second (04:59)
Found a hole and slipped on through
Kissed the stone and learnt the lines
Jumped the cue all the time forgetting you
Best dishevelled lover 3yrs running
Coming second to
A picket fence white 9-5 whos
Just alive
Beyond repair, there is nothing to say
Save some fading regrets
Yet I can't be without this
I want you to be around.
Spit-shone lies, juggled debts
Planted flags and made regrets.
Muddled through all the time
Forgetting you
Cut your teeth and breezed on to
another brothers fickle ways
So why amazed when it don't
Come/turn out your way
10 Scattered Black and Whites (05:32)
Been climbing trees I've skinned my knees
My hands are black the sun is going down
She scruffs my hair in the kitchen steam
She's listening to the dream I weaved today
Crosswords through the bathroom door
While someone sings the theme-tune to the news
And my sister buzzes through the room leaving perfume in the air
And that's what triggered this.
I come back here from time to time
I shelter here some days.
A high-back chair. He sits and stares
A thousand yards and whistles
Marching-band (Boom-ching)
Kneeling by and speaking up
He reaches out and I take a
Massive hand. Disjointed tales
That flit between short trousers
And a full dress uniform
And he talks of people ten years
Gone like I've known them all my life
Like scattered black 'n' whitesâ ¦.
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