Leaders Of The Free World : Elbow : Review : Rolling Stone

Nearly unanimously acclaimed in England as the album that should finally endear Elbow to a mass audience, Leaders of the Free World boasts bigger guitar crescendos, fewer keyboard eccentricities and simpler sentiments than usual from this moody Manchester quintet. What it lacks are top-quality tunes: Although ballads like "Great Expectations" suggest frontman Guy Garvey might shine brighter as a solo singer-songwriter, there's nothing on Elbow's third album as undeniably gorgeous as Asleep in the Back's "Newborn" or Cast of Thousands' "Fugitive Motel." Pumped up with arena-seeking guitars but stripped of the art-rock complications that originally connected Elbow to early Peter Gabriel and late Talk Talk, Garvey's wonderfully wounded tenor here mostly resembles the overly familiar coo of Coldplay's Chris Martin. And let's face it: England needs one more Coldplay like North America requires another Nickelback.