GUY Garvey will follow up last summer's solo concert at Dalby Forest, near Pickering, by returning to the Forestry Commission woodland on June 24 with his Mercury Prize-winning group Elbow.

This will be one of one of seven Forest Live shows by the Bury band in the wake of the February 3 release of their seventh studio album, Little Fictions.

Already Garvey and co – slimmed to a four-piece after the departure of drummer Richard Jupp – have unveiled the lush first single Magnificent (She Says).

Revealing the sound and spirit of the new record, Garvey says: "It’s really quite chunky and beat-heavy. There’s a sparseness to the songs which perhaps we’re not known for. The themes are ranging as always, great big themes and concerns for the world at the same time as falling in love, looking forwards and backwards and all of the things.”

Elbow’s rise over the past two decades has seen them become one of Britain's most significant bands. Since their 2001 debut, Asleep At The Back, their stature has grown with 2003's Cast Of Thousands; 2005's Leaders Of The Free World; the 2009 Mercury Prize winner, The Seldom Seen Kid; 2011's Build A Rocket Boys and 2014's chart topping The Take Off And Landing Of Everything.

Along the way, they have picked up two Ivor Novello awards and a BRIT award for Best British Band. Further career highlights have included Glastonbury Festival’s sunset slot on the Pyramid Stage on three occasion; performing One Day Like This in the London 2012 Summer Olympics closing ceremony, and expanding The Seldom Seen Kid into an orchestral rendition with the BBC Concert Orchestra in the Abbey Road Studio One.

York Press:

Guy Garvey performing at Dalby Forest last June

Garvey branched out on his own with the October 2015 album Courting The Squall. Last June came the Dalby Forest show: the Guy Garvey gig for those who know their Garvey from their Elbow. By then halfway through making the Elbow album, he was in the last throes of a solo project he called "Colliery Afrobeat", leading a line-up featuring the best man from his wedding day three weeks earlier, I Am Kloot's Peter Jobson, on guitar.

Alongside them were The Whip's Nathan Sudders on bass; an all-female brass section of Victoria Rule, Sarah Field and Yorkshire's Anna Kirby, and a drummer, Alex Reeves, playing unusually prominently at the front, to the right of Garvey.

Elbow's woodland travels with a line-up of Garvey, Craig Potter, Mark Potter and Pete Turner will be preceded by a February and March tour, taking in Bridlington Spa on March 14 and Doncaster Dome the next night.

Tickets for June 24 go on sale on Friday from 9am at forestry.gov.uk/music or on 03000 680400. The price is £41.50 plus a £4.65 booking fee.

The Forest Live concert programme is run by the Forestry Commission to bring new audiences to forests. Income generated from ticket sales is spent on protecting, improving and expanding England’s woodlands and increasing their value to people and wildlife. In Forest Live’s 16-year history, money raised has contributed to such projects as wildlife conservation and making improvements for visitors.