Album Review: Little Fictions by Elbow

That particular record, their fourth, served as a spectacular riposte to the idea that winning the Mercury Prize tends to prove an albatross around the necks of the victors. When the Bury outfit clinched it in September 2008, the accolade went on to do everything it was supposed to; the £20,000 prize money surely paled in comparison to the way in which the associated press attention propelled the band to arena status, platinum sales figures and, thanks to the near-ubiquity of "One Day Like This", considerable exposure on television and radio. They went on to tour the LP for a good year longer than they normally would have, and by the time they finally followed it up with 2011's Build a Rocket Boys!, their uncertainty was palpable.

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Ever since 2008's Mercury Prize-winning The Seldom Seen Kid, Elbow have offered slight tweaks on a reliable formula: meditative, dramatic rock songs, studded with sweeping orchestration and boasting subtly idiosyncratic songwriting. At this point, they may not win many more new fans stateside (or elsewhere), but as they age, they are settling into this groove, one that deepens slowly with more years passed and miles traveled. Their last album, 2014's The Take Off and Landing of Everything , catalogued the mixture of life changes that come with adulthood, but was specifically shaped by the end of frontman Guy Garvey's long-term relationship with the writer Emma Jane Unsworth.

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