Review of North
Clevescene, 2003-09-24
- Carlo Wolff
Elvis Costello
North (Decca)
BY CARLO WOLFF
carlo.wolff@clevescene.com
Last year, Elvis Costello released When I Was Cruel, one of his best
recordings since the '80s. This year, the mercurial, pop-besotted Costello
seems to want to be taken seriously, and North is serious indeed. It
also sounds like a collection of love songs memorializing his engagement
to Diana Krall, the Canadian chanteuse who's made jazz sexy all over
again.
The album boasts ornate arrangements and unusually careful vocals.
North sounds like money; if nothing else, it attests to the clout befitting
an artist in his third decade of genre-hopping and -influencing. Unfortunately,
North is also monochromatic. Even though the instrumentation spans solo
piano and a 48-piece ensemble, the tunes blend into one another and
are resolutely slow. Perhaps that's part of Costello's strategy: Corral
"serious" music lovers with albums like North and his many
collaborations, then reconnect with his old audience with albums like
Cruel. Maybe next year, he'll choose invention over craft and grace
his patient fans with an album that's serious and playful.