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There's good new and bad news as Elvis Costello tunes up and teams up with the Brodsky Quartet.
The good news is that Costello is still living his musical life on the edge. The bad news is Costello's rock fans are going to hate The Juliet Letters.
Inspired by real people who want to be pen pals with Romeo's unreal and very dead Juliet, The Juliet Letters is subtitled, "a song sequence for string quartet and voice." Excellently played by the Brodskys — Michael Thomas and Ian Belton, violins; Paul Cassidy, viola; Jacqueline Thomas, cello and delivered with potent sarcasm by Costello, the 20-cut album will sound alien to most ears raised on pop music.
The work, Costello's first in four years has but one song that fits the melodic and rhythmic contours of a standard pop tune. The song is "Jacksons, Monk and Rowe." It's supposed to be a letter about death, divorce and lawyers. Not the stuff of top-40 hits.
The rest of the album functions as a nuclear musical chain reaction. Elements of Gilbert & Sullivan, the Beatles and Randy Newman fuse with the cacophony of a classical train wreck where the atonality of Alban Berg slams into the 12-tone rows of Arnold Schoenberg.
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