When Guy Garvey and the band started working on Audio Vertigo, they thought it might quietly mark the end of a long run. After the pandemic-era record came and went with little fanfare, Garvey said the band honestly wondered if their time might be winding down.
Rather than retreat, the band leaned into something they hadn’t done in decades: writing together in a room again. The result is a beat-driven record with more swagger than its predecessor and a reminder that sometimes the simplest idea is the best one.
“We said, ‘Should we make a really beaty album?’ And everyone just went, ‘Yeah.’”
Garvey also filled the songs with fragments of real stories cloaked in character names and pseudonyms. “They’re all true stories,” he said. “Or fragments of true stories.”
And despite the darker realities creeping into the world around them, the band made a conscious decision about the tone.
“We thought people don’t need another reflection of how dark things are,” he said. “We need release. We need harmony. We need fun.”
Elbow's Guy Garvey on Real Life Knife Fights, Talk Talk, R.E.M., and the Power of Fun
