There is a certain tradition surrounding Elbow releases now, usually involving a new record label, some rueful and charming interviews with the frontman Guy Garvey, and a lot of writers becoming mildly indignant that the band have yet to sell millions of copies.

The problem is that Elbow's music vaguely resembles that of Coldplay, who are big fans, and Snow Patrol, who are their new labelmates. Like its three predecessors, The Seldom Seen Kid juggles the epic and the personal with unerring skill. It is named after a joke by Garvey's father, and filled with songs about the consolations of friends and family, about the births and deaths of loved ones. Garvey and his bandmates have, once again, grasped how to transform all this intimate personal business into something grand, heroic and all-inclusive.

So here we go again. There is a song on this album that ranks as the best that this Manchester quintet have yet written. Weather to Fly is an almost unbearably lovely ballad, a meditation on the band's 17-year history that begins with “one little room and the biggest of plans” and ends with a muted brass band. At first, it seems conceivable that Weather to Fly could become another Yellow or Chasing Cars. But gradually, reality intervenes. This is accessible music, certainly, but it is also extraordinarily fragile. Elbow are stadium rockers, after a fashion, but ones informed by the tender weirdness of Talk Talk rather than the blustery platitudes of U2.

Radiohead make Mercury shortlist

Radiohead competes with The Last Shadow Puppets, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss and Estelle for the prestigious prize

BACKGROUND

• Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid

• Elbow given room to grow

• Elbow download

• Top Five Gigs: Elbow, Goldfrapp, Bjork, Portishead

Ironically, the worst track on the record, One Day Like This, might well be Elbow's best chance of a big breakthrough - if the world needs a marginally superior version of Embrace's soppy singalongs, then this is it. The Fix provides a more appealing digression, being a crafty duet with Richard Hawley that inhabits the same tawdry back alleys as the Specials' Ghost Town.

Mainly, though, The Seldom Seen Kid follows the same path as its predecessors, a delicate negotiation between manly sentiment and ethereal prog-rock. Their critical position as one of Britain's best bands remains secure. Now how about putting us out of our misery and making them one of Britain's biggest bands, too?

Click here to find tickets for Elbow

Editor's choice

• Harry Potter to overtake James Bond as biggest franchise ever
• The 50 Best Movie Villains
• The 15 golden rules of theatre etiquette