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Nov 13, 2015The result is more urgent, less reassuringly structured than your typical Elbow record.
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Nov 6, 2015As you’d expect from Elbow’s frontman, the songs on this debut solo album rarely stray too far from the sleeve on which Guy Garvey wears his heart.
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Oct 29, 2015Courting the Squall is a collection of songs from a musician unencumbered by expectation or industry pressure, just Guy Garvey recording a bunch of tunes with his friends and seeing where his muse leads them. That free spirit gives his poignant solo material a fresh buoyancy that still sounds intimate, due to his estimable songwriting gifts and the band’s ability to not overthink these compositions and just let the musical magic happen naturally.
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Oct 28, 2015This is the best album Garvey has worked on since The Seldom Seen Kid.
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UncutOct 27, 2015Lyrically, as ever, Garvey's skill lies in combining romantic poeticism with sandpaper wit. [Dec 2015, p.80]
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MojoOct 27, 2015Garvey's poetics have acquired more acuity. [Dec 2015, p.86]
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Q MagazineOct 27, 2015Liberated from Elbow's obligation to write at least a few songs big enough for arena stages and radio playlists, Garvey revels in lovingly crafted intimacy. [Dec 2015, p.102]
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Nov 2, 2015As down-to-earth and likeable as its creator, this is an enjoyable collection that mostly avoids the pitfalls of solo albums by members of successful bands that are still very much a going concern.
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Nov 5, 2015Courting the Squall is a solid first solo outing for this music veteran, one that reveals an important truth: no matter how much experience you have making music, if you take the risk on something new, you’re going to find that there’s plenty still to learn, and even more to improve on.
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Nov 2, 2015You can hear confirmation in the musical differences that divide Courting the Squall from one of the more experimental Elbow albums: minor detailing rather than schismatic shifts.
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Oct 30, 2015Courting The Squall touches and recaps on the ideas which Guy Garvey masters in his romanticisms and balladry, but gloriously glimpses his experimental and playful side.
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Oct 29, 2015How much you value such gently experimental foraging over Elbow’s typically rousing melodies might determine your enjoyment of this: it certainly leans towards the former.
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Oct 27, 2015Guy Garvey’s solo debut follows the classic pattern--he’s off to play trad-based songs that “don’t fit the Elbow template” with his mates from I Am Kloot (bassist Pete Jobson) and The Whip (guitarist Nathan Sudders), don’t wait up. But as it reels out the old lines it proves quite the charmer.