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Over the past several years, Elvis Costello has been quite the busy fellow.
He's teamed up with Lucinda Williams for a CMT special; collaborated with, among others, Burt Bacharach, The Mingus Orchestra and the Brodsky Quartet; contributed a song written with his wife (and former Pogues bassist) Cait O'Riordan for the highly regarded comeback CD by soul singer (and Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Famer) Solomon Burke; and he's toured Europe with Nanci Griffith, John Prine and Steve Earle promoting landmine awareness.
For a while there, it looked like or Elvis — born Declan Patrick MacManus — was going to do anything and everything but put out what we might think of as a "normal" Elvis Costello CD.
This past spring's When I Was Cruel, however, was just that, and a welcome, sometimes raw, return to form. Informed by distorted vocals and guitar, Cruel is, Costello told Time Out this past March, "forward-moving."
"It certainly feels like a bolder step," he told the magazine. "And it came out exactly as I hoped it would. There's no one album of mine that it sounds like, but there is a sort of thread that stems from "Watching the Detectives" and runs through "Pills and Soap," "Clubland," "My Dark Life" and "In the Darkest Place from the Burt record. They all have the potential to be in this particular bag. They're more rhythmic, swinging, rooted in bass and not so heavily dominated by harmony."
Calling Cruel "darker-hued music," Costello said that the CD was rooted in playing alone with a guitar and a beatbox, and that he was led to producer Leo Pearson by U2 drummer Larry Mullen.
The result is a CD that sounds modern, but not old-guy-trying-to-keep-up modern; there are some samples and modern touches, yes, but there are also some fine songs to support them.
"I guess this record will appeal to people who perhaps didn't really accept my more experimental sounds and collaborations," Costello said during the same interview. "I mean, it's good to have two or more threads of music, but people who might have thought the pop side of my career is over are wrong. It isn't. It really isn't."
For this tour, Costello has enlisted former Attractions members Steve Nieve (keyboards) and Pete Thomas (drums) as well as former Cracker bassist Davey Faragher.
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