Build a Rocket Boys! Fiction****

Win Butler travelled back to where he grew up in Texas to get the inspiration for Arcade Fire's Suburbs. Elbow's Guy Garvey has gone one better: before starting work on Build a Rocket Boys!, he actually moved back to Bury, Greater Manchester, where he grew up. Comparing the then and now of his life informed most of the lyrical subject matter here – Garvey writes mainly from the perspective of his early twentysomething self in this deftly dramatic remembrance of times past.

There was a fear that, like fellow traveller Richard Hawley losing the run of himself after the commercial breakthrough of Cole's Cornerand descending to Radio 2- friendly fare on the follow-up, that all the Brits/Mercurys/ Ivor Novellos awarded to Seldom Seen Kidwould flatten out Elbow's sound in their pursuit of more mainstream acceptance. But the best and bravest aspect of Build a Rocket Boys!is how it reprises their best work, the debut Asleep in the Back(yes, there were three albums before Seldom Seen Kid). So here they sink back into a more musically ponderous mode, with little of the embellishment of its predecessor.

Opener The Birdsis a frowning affair, an iteration of their core sound, bereft of undulation and tempo change, and the ideal scene-setter for what follows. From there it's straight into the masterpiece of the remarkable Lippy Kids, which echoes the greatness (without the melodramatics) of its geographical next-door neighbour, Late Night Maudlin Street. On Jesus Is a Rochdale Girl, Garvey channels Nick Drake covering That's Entertainment, and rarely does popular music scale such heights. With The Night Will Always Win, Elbow distill everything that has always been so beautifully beguiling about this band into a single song. In its lyrical intonations and sparse melodic line, the tune makes a mockery of all those current waistcoast-wearing rich brats masquerading under the "nu folk" banner.

This is the real deal, magnificent in its composition and execution. Not everything on the album works, but when it does it’s some of the best music you’ll hear this or any other year. See elbow.co.uk

Download tracks: Lippy Kids, Jesus Is a Rochdale Girl, The Night Will Always Win