It takes quite a confident band to kick off their highly-anticipated new album with a stately eight minute track (only to follow it with an equally slow-burning six minute number), especially in a day and age where most music fans get their information 140 characters at a time and have passed judgment on what’s cool or not before they even listen to an entire song by a band. But Elbow have never been a group that has catered to or cared much for the bloggerati anyway, slowly building a dedicated following by releasing thoughtful, richly nuanced albums that require a sense of patience (it’s been a three year wait since The Seldom Seen Kid) that is always rewarded in the end.

And why shouldn’t Elbow be boldly self-assured at this point in their venerable career, having finally achieved a level of critical acclaim (winning the Mercury Prize in 2008) that is deserving of their consistently riveting body of work. The Mancunian quintets fifth album, Build A Rocket Boys!, is certainly no exception, building off of the stirring momentum of their last record, but not trying to repeat its winning formula. It’s a composed, decidedly mellow album (especially the second half) that reveals its gifts slowly, but the payoff is typically an ebullient, emotional release, with Guy Garvey’s plaintively robust vocals leading the way.

The aforementioned epic tracks that kick off the album, ‘The Birds’ and ‘Lippy Kids’, both hum with a tension and a gentle urgency that gradually builds to their respectively soaring crescendos. They are elegantly textured, studied numbers that get the album off to a towering start. The subtle, evenhanded production (handled mostly by keyboardist Craig Potter) gives these songs a wide breadth and intricate nuances that colour the songs but never congest them, allowing the anthemic ‘With Love’ to ascend, prayer-like, to the heavens. And throughout the record, you never once get the sense that you’ve heard Elbow sound quite like this before, with the band continually experimenting with their understated but no less impassioned arrangements, as the wistful, stirring songs take flight amidst Garvey’s communal tales of everyday loss, longing, and looking back.

‘Jesus Is A Rochdale Girl’ is the jaw-dropping centerpiece to the album, with Garvey’s subdued vocals over a muted guitar riff and an evocative keyboard strain. The lyrics are so elusive that the song can mean different things to the listener each time they listen to the song, but each time it will certainly hit them straight in the heart. That strong sentiment and lingering sense of introspection continues straight into ‘The Night Will Always Win’, another spare, haunting piece that is carried by Garvey’s golden vocals, as is the entire record. The various band members frequently drift in and out of the songs, shading the songs with their distinct melodies before eventually ceding the heart of the track back to Garvey, who faithfully carries them home.

The jazzy bass-line and dynamic piano roll of ‘High Ideals’, is one of the highlights of the pensive second side, which is filled with slight, trifling numbers like ‘The River’ and a brief reprise of ‘The Birds.’ ‘Open Arms’ is perhaps an attempt to capture the stadium singalong quality that made ‘One Day Like This’ such a rousing success, but it never feels contrived or forced. But while its clearly a spirited number and surely will be one of the highlights of the band’s current live show, it’s not quite as triumphant as its renowned counterpart. The band takes a tasteful step back on ‘Dear Friends,’ the dreamy lullaby which closes out the record tranquilly, as melancholy, mournful horns bringing things quietly to a close.

It seems like Elbow learned a lot from playing with the BBC Concert Orchestra, as these new songs all have a subtle elegance to them that imbues the songs with a dignified, symphonic quality. And while they clearly aren’t dramatically reshaping their signature sound on Build A Rocket Boys!, they also don’t repeat themselves or fall back on the formula that brought them success in the first place, which makes this album a refreshing rediscovery of a band we all fell in love with a long time ago.