Elbow are an anomaly.

From a country that's all about the stiff upper lip, they wear their bleeding hearts on their sleeves. In an industry that's all about image, they look like they've never even heard of a stylist.

At a time where bands are given one - maybe two - chances at success, their breakthrough came 15 years and four albums into their career. In a market where critical acclaim equals commercial failure, their Seldom Seen Kid won the 2008 Mercury Prize, two Ivor Novello Awards, and scored platinum sales figures. 

And in a world where you're only as good as your latest work, they're remarkably unfazed by the impact of their newfound success.

"The pressures of following such a hugely successful record were nothing compared to the making of the previous albums. If anything it just gave us confidence," says frontman Guy Garvey.

"We agreed that as always we were just going to get stuck in. We tried to ignore the excitement of the big stages we knew we were now going to play and concentrated as always on making a record that would leave the listener somewhere other than it found them."

They've achieved just that. And in the face of overbearing expectation, these five Mancunians have confounded convention yet again by creating an album almost as good as its predecessor.

Unhurried, unassuming, and unconcerned by what's happening in the charts, Build A Rocket Boys is, as ever, more showcase for Garvey's melancholy croon and rapturous melodies than his bandmates' instrumental chops.

It's only the propulsive Neat Little Rows, with distorted vocals and throbbing Arcade Fire rhythm guitars, that really breaks a sweat.

Instead standout Lippy Kids, with an optimistic refrain that lends the album its title, is an elegant, carefully considered look at the promise of youth. The hymnal With Love is a song of praise complete with church choir handclaps, carefully undermined by the mournful vocal. The stark Jesus Is A Rochdale Girl serves as little more than wallpaper for Garvey's whispered shopping list of life.

And, even despite its eight-minute running time and lyrics like "I wore your glacial patience to a smudge of bitter dust", epic opener The Birds is subtler than the group's biggest hit, the orchestral One Day Like This.

The self-indulgence of success does sneak in - The Birds (Reprise) is pointless; Dear Friends goes nowhere - but Build A Rocket Boys reiterates that you don't need to fit in to be a success.