Elbow are a good band, a proper indie band like what you used to get, in that they are actually producing a decent back catalogue of well crafted music.I agree with the fact that their last two albums have seen them step up again too. I think some people find Guy Garvey's voice a little dirgy/moany/repetitive I got over that problem when they released 'A Cast of Thousands' a beautiful disc, at points his voice soars, there's something tender and yearning, and personal, like he's opening up his ribcage to the listener.They're worth a million Coldplays really...
They may not be at their peak, or very trendy right now but I think Radiohead are still the best british band around. Simply because they seem to challenge themselves rather than caring too much about what their audience wants too much...
As for 'new' British bands, I think there are plenty of good British acts in the underground, it's just the ones that got foisted into the mainstream at the moment, are usually the ones that have the right package but very little in the way of substance. There's a problem with the way music is promoted really, its a self fulfilling problem, A certain sound is the flavour of the month, British band's copy that sound, pluggers say here's the NEWBESTNEWTHING, and the whole thing goes round and round.
There's too much expectation too, with bands that have an 'impact'. It happened when the Strokes were waaay over hyped, it happened when the Libertines broke through too high cool list placings on the back of one album, and its arguably befalling the Arctic Monkeys, also if one makes a breakthrough commercially and the rest follow.
You can't generalise but of late I've found that a lot of American, Canadian and Swedish 'indie' is more interesting simply because they are allowed time to grow before they are expected to shift any units, or get their records imported over here. Many of them seem less concerned with sales, scenes or making it big, thus what they produce is often better....
Best new british album I've heard so far this year is by:
http://www.myspace.com/catsinparisStatistics: Posted by Bloodflowerbill — Thu Aug 14, 2008 2:58 am
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