Elbow - Lippy Kids

Watching Elbow perform their track Open Arms at Glasto the other week, I was struck at how the band really were made for moments like these - and new single Lippy Kids does little to challenge that status quo. The song seems like it could spring fresh out of the packet (or CD case) onto the stage - Guy Garvey singing his heart out to ever larger crowds.

The title Lippy Kids might suggest a load of angry chavs, fresh off the Jeremy Kyle show, brawling with each-other, but it really couldn't be more the opposite. Indeed, you're not likely to find a more gentle, lullaby-like track this month.

Despite being the track from which parent album Build A Rocket Boys! gets its title (best use of an exclamation mark in a song/album title we've seen in a long title), personally I'd have preferred High Ideals as the next single instead. For all its charm, Lippy Kids sounds far more the kind of vast entity that exists better as part of the album-whole.

That said, Lippy Kids will doubtless soundtrack emotive Comic Relief/X Factor montages for years to come. But then that's what Elbow have always done so well.

And as beautiful as the track is, as with all Elbow songs, I still find myself saying: What this really needs is a good radio edit.

Lippy Kids is released on the 8th August.