This is from  the 5/15/96 issue of The Aquarian Weekly (a local
New Jersey paper) and its supplement, The EC (East Coast) Rocker.
Comments by Matthew Berlyant <berlyant@eden.rutgers.edu>:


Throughout his long, eclectic career, Elvis Costello has retained his
marvelous dramatic phrasing and gorgeous sense of melancholy.  However, if
you feel as I do that some of his recent albums lacked a focused sense of
creative pop songwriting, then you will want to rush down to your favorite
record vendor for All This Useless Beauty (should be in italics). It's the
most varied, unpretentious batch of tunes he's released in years. 

Opening with "The Other End of the Telescope", we hear the Elvis of years
past with a bright, scaling piano and a lost love flair, Graham Parker style.
(Oh, I'm sure that he would just LOVE that comparison!).  The slow, sardonic
title track finds him still getting into the heads of his characters.  "It is
times like this/She's tempted to spit/If she wasn't so ladylike."  Heavy
keyboards are offset by a silly mellotron in "Distorted Angel", which sports
the same flat production we always hear in his records.  The quick, bright
"Shallow Grave", written with Paul McCartney, has tight harmonies and a sharp
show tune feel (uh huh...).  This collaboration could easily write a Broadway
musical (whatever you say).  The tender piano waltz "Poor Fractured Atlas"
contains more bitterness so eloquent: "I'm almost certain/he's trying to
increase his burden." A cover of Roger McGuinn's "You Bowed Down" (It's a
song Costello wrote for McGuinn. Duh squared!!!) is accented by that classic
Costello sneer. 

The whole set is so magical and touching, it may even recruit new fans for
the old master.  And as Oscar Wilde said, "All art is completely useless", so
get yourself a free afternoon to indulge in fruitless awe of this beauty.

			-Holly Ennist