Leaders Of The Free World is the somewhat misleadingly titled third album for the Manchurian Guy Garvey-led quintet. As such, the career trajectory established by the sombre Asleep In The Back and its practically lovey-dovey by comparison follow-up Cast Of Thousands has been confirmed. Despite the Bush-inspired title track (Garvey referred to Jr. as a "spoilt, nasty, selfish little shit for brains" in an open letter to his fans), this album follows the continually happier and more optimistic path, which is by no means a shock. You could hear that Garvey had fallen in love sometime between the first two Elbow albums, and that is again seen here by an almost total absence of the meaner, grungier guitar sound that we experienced in different contexts in their first two. "Mexican Standoff" holds the most fuzz here in a closer reminder of what the Flaming Lips can do, as opposed to the endless Radiohead comparisons many drew before. But, past aside, Leaders isn't really that bad. Tom Rothrock —who's responsible for the best works of Beck and Elliott Smith, among others— helped mix/produce almost the entire album, and it must be noted that these facilities have never before been so rich on an Elbow album. Being something of a communist lefty myself, seeing Guy write the first blatantly and scathingly political Elbow cut "Leaders Of The Free World" immediately earns him a much bigger chunk of respect than he would've received without it here (and without it this album would've just been Cast with the guitars turned down). It's probably the worst Elbow album yet, but that's really not saying much yet. If Garvey has a nasty break-up any time soon, he'll probably write a canonized rock classic. Until that day, I'd take this over any Coldplay album every time.
1. Station Approach
2. Picky Bugger
3. Forget Myself
4. The Stops
5. Leaders Of The Free World
6. An Imagined Affair
7. Mexican Standoff
8. The Everthere
9. My Very Best
10. Great Expectations
11. Puncture Repair
More about: Elbow
