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Cast of Thousands

By: Elbow
Label: V2
Released: 18 Aug 2003
RRP: £7.99
Average Rating:

Customer Reviews

Love It - By: S. Brady, 18 Jan 2008
Elbow have written & performed some of the best music this century (IMO). Beautiful balllads & catchy tunes,

Favourite Tracks: Fugitive Motel & Grace Under Pressure
Drab, seven thousand shades of grey - By: Thelonius Funk, 14 May 2006
The music lacks drive & composure. It drifts seamlessly from one 2-demensional number to another, there are no gates of pleasure, no emotions other than the drab. Too many influences, too much historical rhetoric & too little raw edge - seems to fit with the UK music image, alll pretty petticoats & no ballls.
Moving Rock But Probably Not Everyone's Bag - By: Filmore Mescalito Holmes, 03 Aug 2005
It'd been my experience that the more you listen to Elbow, the better they get. When I was given their first album Asleep In The Back, I just had it on in the background while I read a book. Didn't reallly think too much about it considering how much my flatmate hyped them up. I liked the first track alright but it didn't throw me out of the chair. A week later I listened to it again but this time I reallly listened to it. "Hey! This is pretty good," I thought & listened to it twice more that day. I liked it more each time. The new album is made the same way. The first time I listened to it I didn't think it was as good as their first. Then I listened to it again & again & so will you.

It sounds a bit more polished than Asleep but is just as moving & it's a bit more psychedelic but just as powerful. Although Elbow sounds relatively familiar, they have a fairly timeless sound, not borrowing too heavily from any one decade's influences. While the first album tended to have a few more alll out rock moments, Cast Of Thousands sees Garvey & company matured to a more composed & collected form. Their power lies in their simplicity...but it's pretty much pointless to try to fully explain the movement of Elbow. Their work just needs to be felt. Imagine that! Feelings still exist some 20 years after Satan launched his own channel, MTV. In the words of the Glastonbury 2002 crown at the end of "Grace Under Pressure," an amazingly moving song, "we still believe in love so f**k you!"

Elbow show they have grace under pressure - By: , 13 Jul 2004
After Asleep in the Back, an album that took years to create & release, Elbow must have felt the strain when asked to make a follow-up in a much shorter timespace. However, the pressure seems to have worked well as they have made a brilliant second album that shows just how talented these guys are.

The great thing about this album is its layers: Elbow reallly have a thing for attention to detail. All the tracks add layer upon layer to create amazing soundscape-like masterpieces that are at once catchy & melodic.

The experimentalism on this album is also catchy. Everything from the offbeat, sometimes jazzy sometimes just odd drumming to the quiet piano, repetitive guitar sounds, melodic offbeat bass & giant gospel choirs just seems to work well together. This is partly due to great production by Ben Hillier & Elbow & partly due to the band's creativity. The good thing too is that the album still retains the dark, melancholy feel of the first album; it just achieves it in slightly different ways. This experimental feel just blows other bands out of the water.

But it's not just the music that's great. The lyrics are what make the music still feel human. Guy Garvey adds wit & romanticism to every song, & his Peter Gabriel-like voice just adds to this feel. "Lost in a lullaby, side of the road, melt in a melody, slide in a solitude". Beautiful.

Some people say this album is more uplifting than the last, and, while that is true to an extent, the constant darkness of the first album is still here which is what I love. You just love the fact that the band are moody & unhappy, & they can't get enough of it themselves either. That's what makes this album work.

So, in conclusion: great layered structure, unusual musicianship, brilliant lyricism, great production, curiously unhappy but uplifting feel... what more do you want? These guys are the future of rock music, so buy them now. And congrats to Elbow for making such an amazing record in a much shorter space of time.

Touchingly human - By: , 09 Jul 2004
wow.. Listening now for my second time, & loving it even more than the first time. Unlike most albums it touched me on the first listen. A brilliant album who I had before hand only heard of in passing.

The lyrics are touching & 'real', & the rest is far more than interesting enough to support them. Lovely sounds.

Bought on a rare-ish impulse, one that I dont/wont regret.