Elbow's second LP, "Cast of Thousands" is set to be release January 27th on V2 Records.

 "’Asleep In the Back’ was the best of ten years work, so there was no way we could do that again," says bassist Pete Turner. "I think with the new album we've ended up with the same sort of attention to detail and willingness to experiment. But it was made in a pressure cooker, so it has a very different vibe."

“On ‘Cast of Thousands’”, we went looking for some new noises," as singer Guy Garvey puts it.

They found them as the core band (Garvey and Turner plus drummer Richard Jupp, keyboard player Craig Potter and guitarist Mark Potter) are joined by a cast of many, including members of fellow Manchester bands Doves and Alfie, the London Community Gospel Choir, a string section and  the entire crowd at Glastonbury singing.

"I'd say the songs are just on the right side of hopeful but with our usual twisted doom factor," he explains. "The first record was ten years of experience put into as few words as possible. I thought this album would be lighter. I didn't expect to unearth any demons. But they came tumbling out, anyway."

"Although great things were happening musically, we were on a razor' edge, " Pete Turner recalls. "We hit the wall. It was very uncomfortable."

Unlike “Asleep In The Back,” where the songs were all ready and waiting to go, the tunes on the new record were being completed as they were recorded. "We felt like we were rolling a boulder up a hill," Garvey says.

When they reconvened after a trip to the Isle of Mull, the atmosphere was markedly different. "It massively assisted the process," says Pete Turner. "Once we'd boiled down the argument, we realized we were so wrapped up in making the record, we weren't expressing ourselves to each other".

With the tension aired, the band felt liberated to make the record they had always wanted. "It was only when we came back we realized we COULD make a better album that the first one," says Garvey. "We knew we were going somewhere different, somewhere bolder. But nobody felt that until we took the break."

Ben Hillier, whose other credits include Blur's “Think Tank,” produced the CD.

"He kept his head while we were losing ours," says Garvey. "His philosophy is to allow you to do things that you're not supposed to do on records. If you have even a seed of an idea, he points a Dictaphone at you and says 'put it down'."

For much of the time, different members of the band were working in three different rooms on different songs, while Garvey was in a fourth room finishing lyrics. "It was like a sound factory," he says. Then the final phase involved moving south, to complete the album at the Dairy in Brixton, Hillier's own stomping ground.

Yet each song has its own story.

“Grace Under Pressure” was written in Mull. "Maybe it was because we were staying in a church. But we always knew the song demanded a gospel choir," says Garvey. The extraordinary drum sound on the track is also indicative of the Elbow approach. "They were cut up from a jam and edited. But that's not how we like to work, so Jupp then learned to play it live."

On “Ribcage”, Hillier came up with the idea of attaching a small contact mike to Garvey's throat. "It's really strange because you don't hear any of the syllables we reckon it's the first pre-tongue vocal ever recorded," the singer says.

“I've Got Your Number” (originally called “Lovely Bit Of Veg”), was inspired by a passage on Jimi Hendrix's “Electric Ladyland” album. "We're proud of our influences so I'm happy to say that," Garvey notes.

“Snooks” - a reference to the blind New Orleans blues singer, Snooks Eaglin - is sub-titled “Progress Report”, for it maps out what has happened to Elbow since the last album. "We got into fishing and Jupp had a baby, the first one of us. So we're all feeling more grown up and getting proper lives," Garvey says.

“Fugitive Motel” is about the long-distance love affairs which several of the band have been forced to conduct over the last couple of years and was inspired by a stay in a motel in Austin, Texas.

"It was right by the freeway with a dirty little swimming pool and you just know people who have committed crimes were staying there," Garvey recalls. "The influence of travel on the songs is strong because between the first and second records we saw the world for the first time."