Review of When I Was Cruel
The Onion, 2002-05-01
- Keith Phipps
Elvis Costello
When I Was Cruel
(Island)
Eight years have passed between Brutal Youth, Elvis Costello's last
album of all-new, non-collaborative pop songs, and the new When I Was
Cruel, but Cruel still sounds like a sequel, slightly diminished returns
and all. Again, after years of stylistic wandering, Costello has returned
to the basic rock setupand most of the band that made him famousand
found it welcoming. Which is why it seems all wrong that the disc's
best song is the one that diverges the most from formula. "When
I Was Cruel No. 2" sounds like the product of late nights reflecting
on the past with Portishead playing in the background. Like one of Bob
Dylan's epics given a Costello-esque spin, "Cruel" scans past
an expansive cast of characters frozen in the landscape of the singer's
psyche. The drama comes from Costello's refusal to indulge in the artful
insults that so dominated his early albums, refraining from passing
judgement while commenting, "It was so much easier / when I was
cruel." Like an alcoholic pausing before refusing a drink, Costello
assumes the burden of wisdom with a tinge of regret, and nothing else
here quite matches that for psychological complexity. On Youth, Costello
made the return to his roots sound as relevant to 1994 as it did to
1978. Here, his commitment to sounds both old and new seems tentative,
no matter which direction he veers on his songs, none of which find
the focus and balance of "Cruel." Still, When I Was Cruel
features plenty of worthwhile material. The opening track, "45,"
runs through three permutations of the number (as a year, an age, and
a recording format), and sounds as catchy and clever as one of the singles
it celebrates. But too often, Costello strains to squeeze more musical
and lyrical notions into his simple pop songs than they can hold, leaving
listeners with a scattershot collection instead of a fleshed-out statement,
and a merely good album instead of a great one. Keith Phipps