elbow reveal a further track from their tenth studio album Audio Vertigo, out on March 22, in the shape of ‘Good Blood Mexico City’.
Perfectly described by Classic Rock as “saw toothed rock” in a recent 9/10 album review, ‘Good Blood Mexico City’ is arguably the most heads down track the band have recorded in recent years and adds a further audio exhibit to singer Guy Garvey’s justified claim that the forthcoming album is “designed to be played in the big rooms” that the band will visit on their first UK Arena tour since 2018 throughout May.
With Audio Vertigo finding friends across the board, ‘Good Blood Mexico City’ follows the release of ‘Lovers’ Leap’ and ‘Balu’. The band performed lead single ‘Lovers’ Leap’ on the Graham Norton show & a stunning Radio 2 Piano Rooms performance with the BBC Concert Orchestra (including a cover of ‘We Have All The Time In The World’).
Listen to ‘Good Blood Mexico City’ by elbow on the Shoot Music New Releases Playlist on Spotify.
Recorded throughout 2023 at the band’s individual studios, Migration Studios, Gloucestershire, and finalised at the band’s facility at Blueprint Studios, Salford, the album marks a significant step change for the group following 2021’s Flying Dream 1.
Characterised by the band as an album heavy on stomp, swing, and infectious oil-can funk beats, Audio Vertigo sees elbow on the front foot, fusing their love of varied and various styles on a collection that ranges from the Beastie Boys meets Bonham breaks of opener ‘Things I’ve Been Telling Myself For Years’, through the “theme for a futuristic cop show” of lead single ‘Lover’s Leap’ to the infectiously funky latest single.
The wide screen ambition doesn’t end with the music. Guy delivers a lyrical sweep on the album that considers our obsession with star crossed lovers, admonishes, and forgives his self-delusion, puzzles the nature of loss in a digital age, and narrates a real-life knife fight, all the while finding friends, real and imagined, and experiences, genuine and mythical, along the way. Long a fan of Radio 4’s ‘In Our Time’, the lyrics of Audio Vertigo match that program’s scale and scope in their ambition and their execution, including surely the only recorded presence of the Chandrasekhar Limit in a pop song in ‘Knife Fight’.
