Guy Garvey - Courting the Squall, review: 'as vivid and beautiful as Elbow'

Elbow haven’t split up, but perhaps they ought to be worrying when their singer sounds like he’s having this much fun away from the band.

The 41-year-old’s first solo album announces itself with a lurching beat, stabs of guitar and a keyboard solo from outer space on Angela’s Eyes. Harder Edges has a similarly loose-limbed feel, dominated, like many of the 10 songs, by heavy blasts of New Orleans horns.

There’s a sense that he’s seeing what he can get away with, as when Belly of the Whale suddenly becomes George Michael’s Careless Whisper, and he even has a Billie Holiday moment on the shuffling jazz of Electricity.

But as with Elbow, there are also vivid lyrics and great beauty. Roll on his curation of next year’s Meltdown Festival.

(Polydor)