There is really no mistaking the rippling piano that opens Who Believes In Angels? a melodious cascade of notes that rings out like someone has reopened the Yellow Brick Road. Elton John is back with a new single that evokes his most glorious of glory days, a sombre, thoughtful ballad that lifts to an elegant emotional chorus and explodes into an epic finale.
A duet with brilliant American singer-songwriter Brandi Carlile, Who Believes in Angels? is hugely evocative of classic 1970s Elton, a rich and colourful band arrangement in which his gliding piano is undergirded by fizzing retro synths while an immaculate rhythm section shifts deftly in and out of the picture.
Carlile’s voice rises into the kind of hot, high spaces that Elton himself hasn’t touched in decades, whilst his own bluesy, soulful tones hold the centre of a song about standing up to slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. “I have been there, man, I have been there,” Elton sings, with the conviction of someone who has come back with tales to tell.
There’s a long fading final note reminiscent of the Rocket Man falling back to earth. I think it is probably the best song he’s put out in a quarter of a century – and it is only scratching the surface of a forthcoming album of the same name. 2001’s Songs From The West Coast remains a late-career highlight, but the Who Believes in Angels? album does something fans could only dream of, recreating the sound, drama and exuberance of Elton’s imperial 1970s pomp.
I am sure that there will be some shrugs and eyerolls to the news that Sir Elton is back. I mean, has he ever really gone away? Since he shuffled rather stiffly off the stage following the final date of his five-year-long Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour in July 2023, he has been out and about promoting documentaries, podcasts, interviews and theatrical musical openings, sung on a Dolly Parton album, played a short concert in Washington Library of Congress whilst accepting the Gershwin Prize and appeared onstage at the Royal Albert Hall in London duetting with Dua Lipa. It has already been one of the more active retirements in pop history, but his forthcoming new album looks set to take it to a whole new level.
I was lucky enough to hear an advance playback last year, and it genuinely blew me away. It features 10 lovingly crafted songs, very evocative of classic soft rock Elton, but with a contemporary sheen that perhaps reflects the ways so many artists (such as Air, Empire of the Sun, John Grant and Carlile herself) have been influenced by Elton.
His longstanding songwriting partner Bernie Taupin has contributed lyrics, as has Carlile, whilst Elton has done what he does best, turning poetic words into richly fluid, dynamic and emotional songs. Highlights include an epic tribute to a lost enchantress of songcraft, The Rose of Laura Nyro, barrelhouse crocodile rocker Little Richard’s Bible, the dizzyingly unwinding The River Man and the rueful, wise ballad When This Old World Is Done With Me.
The band includes outstanding drummer Chad Smith and inventive guitarist Josh Klinghoffer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, with top session bassist Pino Palladino (who has played with everyone from Paul Young to David Gilmour and The Who). Their talents have been marshalled by producer Andrew Watt, who started out with the likes of Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga but has recently been much in demand to add a contemporary bite to such vintage stars as The Rolling Stones, Ozzy Osbourne and Iggy Pop.
Key to the project is Carlile, an Americana-rooted singer-songwriter who is not particularly well known in the UK, but a multiple Grammy award winner in the US. She is a complex songwriter and one of the finest singers I have ever heard live. A rare UK concert in Drury Lane last year was simply astonishing. Carlile is also the woman perhaps most responsible for Joni Mitchell’s recent comeback, backing the great chanteuse with her band onstage whilst frequently performing Joni’s songs in her own concerts. She is at the heart of this new Elton album, sharing equal billing and vocal duties, but she doesn’t overwhelm it.
Carlile clearly approached it as a fan, encouraging Elton to reconnect with his classic sound. Married since 2012 to an English woman, Catherine Shepherd, the singer is a prominent vocal LGBTQ artist in America, and has been a close friend and ally of Elton’s for many years. This feels like she has helped him make the album his fans would want to hear, using her own incredible vocal prowess to carry his melodies to spaces his own voice can no longer reach.
Despite recent revelations that his eyesight has deteriorated to near blindness, the 77-year-old Elton is set to return to the stage in a one-off show with Carlile at the London Palladium on 25 March. Fans who pre-order the new album will gain exclusive access to buy advance tickets. It reflects Elton’s commitment to a project that seems to have put a creative spring back in his creaky hips. He has enthusiastically described it as “one of the greatest musical experiences” of his life, and said he feels as if he is “pushing the door open to come into the future. . . This is the new start for me. As far as I’m concerned, this is the start of my career Mark 2.”
So much for retirement. I knew it wouldn’t last.
