Album Review: Guy Garvey - Courting The Squall

Barely a year from their sixth album and three months off the Lost Worker Bee EP, here's Elbow's Guy Garvey's debut solo offering which won't scare anyone into thinking the band's days are numbered.

The title evokes a sense of defiance or rebellion, but Courting The Squall is unhinged from Elbow's melancholia. It's awash with jazzy flourishes, rickety instruments picked up from relatives' musty lofts and a comfortingly fatherly plod down the hallways as he mumbles and dances to himself. Many of these homely songs feel like they should have been on Build A Rocket Boys but without the jagged bluster.