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Listening to Costello can be a frustrating experience if you've been a fan since you were in high school in '77.
The mature adult in you accepted years ago that Elvis had progressed beyond those angry young man days. But just once more you'd love to hear him go all out musically, the way he still does lyrically.
You would like to like Elvis again, instead of merely respecting him. You haven't felt that way since, perhaps, King of America and Blood & Chocolate. And to a certain degree, you get to like All This Useless Beauty.
Recording with the Attractions again, Costello is nothing if not eclectic. The key word is "mix." The album is a mix of songs he wrote for others and new material — an unexpected mix of styles and sounds.
By unexpected, I mean dropping in a hip-hop rhythm track to start "It's Time" before going off in another, and highly spirited, direction. I mean the fragmented, jagged-edged, jump R&B clickety-clack of "Shallow Grave," a collaboration with Paul McCartney. It's the dark underpinnings of "Distorted Angel," with swatches of R&B ballad keyboard lines. It's in these moments that you hear elements of the old Elvis.
However, there's still plenty to leave you flat, like "I Want to Vanish," recorded with the Brodsky Quartet, or "Poor Fractured Atlas." Nothing is terrible, mind you — again, the lyrics are compelling, as they usually are — but some of the tunes leave you in a purgatory of sorts.
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