Review of When I Was Cruel
SF Gate, 2002-04-21
- James Sullivan

 

ELVIS COSTELLO

When I Was Cruel Island, $18.98

This spring Elvis Costello will record his first symphonic score, "Il Sogno, " with Michael Tilson Thomas conducting the London Symphony Orchestra. It's the sort of peregrination that has preoccupied the onetime king of incisive pop-rock for the past decade or so.

No disrespect to Costello. An artist this gifted has every right to dabble wherever he sees fit. But much of his recent work has sounded more like casting about than mastery. The Bacharach collaboration? Overrated. The chamber-music "Juliet Letters"? Too precious. "For the Stars," with mezzo- soprano Anne-Sofie Von Otter? Already forgotten.

Refreshingly, "When I Was Cruel" puts a big boot in the back of all that. A purported return to rock 'n' roll form, the album is actually a taut exercise in experiment a la Costello's mid-to-late '80s records, including the recently reissued "Spike" and "Blood and Chocolate." In particular it's his wonderful voice -- mixed way up front, raspy and deliciously vindictive on songs such as the title track -- that recalls the period.

The record, as Costello has said, is "rowdier" than anything he's done in years. Besides the classic mercilessness of his lyrics, he stirs up some thrilling clangor on guitar.

But that doesn't mean it's straight-ahead rock 'n' roll. Several songs imply the cosmopolitan intrigue of trip-hop -- not nearly dance music, just a certain textural richness. A ska-style trombone snakes through "Spooky Girlfriend"; a squawking cacophony of Moroccan horns makes "15 Petals" a gas.

The record's production, credited to "the Impostor," fits alongside the idiosyncratic sound of collaborators Tchad Blake (Soul Coughing) and sometime Costello associate Mitchell Froom (Los Lobos/Latin Playboys). Clarity and murk are made to coexist, with various sounds -- a bass line here, Steve Nieve's slicing keyboard there -- set off on islands of their own without detracting from the total picture.

"Cruel" isn't quite a crowd pleaser. Many Costello fans won't hear any potential replacements for their staples, "Watching the Detectives," maybe, or "Accidents Will Happen." But the record writes in boldface the continued vitality of one of the crucial rock 'n' rollers of any era, just in the nick of time.

-- James Sullivan