The return of Elbow begins like a revolving door. There’s no grand entrance, no massive fanfare, just the gentle noise of a twirling set of voices and percussion. It then breaks down to some gentle percussion and Guy Garvey’s weather worn vocal croons out of the darkness. It’s been a long time gents, but it’s good to have you back.The Seldom Seen Kid is the follow-up to 2005’s fantastic Leaders of The Free World but it's an altogether different beast. Not as overtly political as its predecessor, this is a much more cultured and restrained affair. The music is laid back, there's more strings and gentle pieces of music for Garvey to hang his lyrics and vocals from.The aforementioned first track, ‘Starlings’, has some of Garvey’s finest one-liners to date, the song dealing with the wonders and mysteries of falling in love and the minefield of telling someone: “So yes I guess I’m asking you to back a horse that’s good for glue”, concluding with the wondrous “The violence exploding inside when I met your eyes, is that I’m spinning and diving like a cloud of starlings”¦ darling is this love?”. And that’s just the first track.In fact the lyrics stand head and shoulders above anything else I’ve heard so far this year. They’re rooted in something uniquely British ”“ the descriptions of landscapes and everyday objects used as metaphors for the daily struggle that is life and it’s associated pitfalls. The centre piece of the album, ‘Loneliness of a Tower Crane Driver’, is a perfect example. The human condition distilled by a sight that dominates the horizon in most cities. Garvey has always been the champion of the working man and this typifies it, using this tower as the ultimate expression of loneliness and alienation; “Send up a prayer with my name”.Garvey hasn’t lost his wicked sense of humour either. ‘Grounds for Divorce’, the lead single, opens with “I’ve been working on a cocktail called grounds for divorce” before braking free of its Delta-Blues opening and becoming a vicious and arcing stomp. The crunching guitars and drums become shards of light that pierce through the darkness that shroud it. ‘The Fix’, a duet with Sheffield’s Richard Hawley, is another playful song. Reading like the script of a sinister British gangster movie, the description of fixing a horse race to ensure the protagonists win big is compelling. Garvey and Hawley’s vocals perfectly entwining around the retro groove of the music.Another highlight is ‘An Audience With The Pope’ which, in some perverse alternative universe, would be the theme tune from Get Carter. It’s 60’s guitars and delicately drawn piano brood around Garvey’s deep, growling voice that whispers “The things that she’s asked me to do, would see a senior saint forget his name”.What’s struck me about this album, after listening to it over the past month or so, is that it’s a delicate and intricate album that needs more than one listen to fully reveal itself to the listener. The production is dusky and hushed, keeping the music under wraps and never truly letting go. There’s so many intricate parts to the music, little pieces of piano and strings that seem just out of reach, that you can’t comprehend it in one listen.In 2008, when it seems like the whole World is coming apart around us, The Seldom Seen Kid feels like the perfect antidote. It’s life affirming, joyful, playful and could well become one of the most important records of the year. Its whole approach can be summed up with the lyrics from ‘On a Day Like This’; “It’s looking like a beautiful day”¦ throw those curtains wide, one day like this a year will see me right”. 90%Links Elbow [official site] [myspace] [buy it]