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So the King is dead, long live the King!
Elvis Costello is back, with more variety and sheer musicality than ever before. If Armed Forces is to be taken as a test of Costello's longevity, and the magical third one usually is, we can rest assured the bespectacled one is in for one long career.
Originally and fittingly titled Emotional Fascism, Costello's new album is a stunner.
This may not be the future of rock 'n' roll, but it is certainly a strong reminder of where it should have gone, where it still can go when someone remembers how it all began and the possibilities that still exist within the context of the art form.
Armed Forces and its companion live ep are an affirmation that the battle isn't vet won or lost, that there is a growth process going on that, as Pete Townshend said recently, "the music must change."
Costello challenges the elusive hit single by including both a live version and the just-released single, "Accidents Will Happen," on the album.
It smacks of arrogance, something he seems intent in turning into an art, but it works also to protect the integrity of the new, more rhythmically balanced music — the band manages to make the live side as palatable as the studio side.
And with the live "Alison," Elvis proves himself a crooner almost in spite of himself.
The Attractions — Steve, Bruce and Pete — have jelled into a fine band, much more secure than the fledgling Clover of the first album or the studio, cum Rockpile, band of the breakthrough This Year's Model.
The emphasis on the organ has changed from trying too hard to make up for Costello's guitar playing by turning it into another lead instrument, to giving the sound a fullness almost reminiscent of Ray Manzarek's work with the early Doors.
The Nick Lowe influence is felt throughout.
Having had a whole month in the studio — the last album took a little more than a week — the boys must have had a lot of time to trade impressions, which should make Lowe's soon-to-be-released follower to Pure Pop For Now People a very interesting proposition.
A prelude of things to come is the inclusion of Lowe's "What's So Funny 'Bout Peace, Love And Understanding?," long a staple of both their live shows, in Armed Forces. The song was last seen as the b/side of Lowe's "American Squirm."
There is a little here for everyone, with Costello juggling. styles like the master showman he has become.
"Senior Service" is British disco, the kind of understated dancer that made heavy favorites out of pre-America Brinsley Schwarz. "Oliver's Army" and "Party Girls" are ballads worthy of Buddy Holly and Elvis in his new-found range brings them off beautifully.
As a bow to changelings, and maybe to prove how easy it really is to be a man of many moods, Costello relaxes through a disco-ish "Moods For Moderns" that manages to make the thump, thump, thump bearable, like Bowie's Eurodisco was bearable.
"Accidents Will Happen" is a well-chosen single, fast, snappy and sadly not the one to put him over; a more common approach must be found. "Green Shirt," a moody salute to The Who, with just about every Sixties group given the nod, is a sensational track, full of drums and mood. "Two Little Hitlers," a wink to Lowe, is touchingly funny — "she's so calculating, has a calculator."
The ep contains live versions of "Accidents," "Alison" and a stunning — and longer — "Watching The Detectives," in which Costello, playing to the kids of Hollywood High, turns the song into the episodic nightmare it always had the structure to become.
The blurb on the cover — the first, by the way, to include computer pricing codes — says the ep won't last long. It would be like half a record in much the same way as Tom Robinson's first American release.
Costello may be the last great original, the last angry man. With this album he consolidates the critical and commercial rewards — the last album sold much better than the first — toward which he has been working.
The Attractions are one great British band. Together, and it is more of a group effort than anything recorded by Elvis in the past, they have created a straightforward, sincere and musically — as well as lyrically — very superior record.
It's safe to say it won't be their last.
With a supportive Columbia apparently set and ready to do a Dylan on them, it seems safe to say Costello's place in the rock 'n' roll corridor is secure.
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