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Elvis Costello is the Woody Allen of rock music. Worried, too erudite and cuttingly sarcastic for most polite gatherings, he's given to ambitious, excellently-crafted artistic experiments that are the definitive word on the passing scene, whenever they're not self-indulgent bores.
And, like Allen, you either love him or hate him for his intent pursuit of the same old themes — guilt, love and the loathsome bourgeoisie.
Costello now shares the same rung as Allen on the career ladder. Having unleashed his scabrous tongue in just about every style, he's able to skip easily from genre to genre, collating improbable scraps of raw material in art that speaks on umpteen levels.
Here Costello uses the services of Paul McCartney, The Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Allen Toussaint, Roger McGuinn, Tom Waits' associates Marc Ribot and Michael Blair and a host of others, to create music that's wildly funny and freewheeling, mean and dense, gritty, empathetic and fantastical.
"Tramp The Earth Down" is a vicious yet unusually rounded view of Margaret Thatcher (she'd like to be liked too, says Costello). "God's Comic" is a deeply serious discussion of who God is, as explored through the hypocritical personage of a drunk priest. "Veronica" is a perky little ditty that's makes a strong argument for the liberation that accompanies senility.
Agree with him or not, enjoy his scaly, whiny vocals or not, you can't dispute the courageous originality of a guy who drives a spike through pompous and conventional assumptions on thirteen different songs.
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