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Declan MacManus, known to most fans as Elvis Costello, doesn't use a bunch of gadgets and doodads on Blood and Chocolate.
As the opening track, "Uncomplicated," suggests, Costello's music is built around guitars and drums and an occasionally funked-up bass without a lot of adornment. The music plays a subordinate role to Costello's vocals and lyrics.
The instruments are not insignificant on "Blood and Chocolate," but Costello and producer Nick Lowe have placed greater emphasis on Costello's lyrics. Elvis Costello has a message, and he wants to be sure anyone within earshot can understand it.
His lyrics initially seem to be offhand remarks, as in "Home is Anywhere You Hang Your Head," but after rolling in your brain for a few seconds they hit hard. "Here comes Mr. Misery / He's tearing out his hair again / He's crying over her again / He's standing in the supermarket shouting at the customers."
We all know someone like that.
"And the world has wiped its mouth since then / Or maybe it was yawning," Costello concludes. Have you ever seen somebody make a complete fool of himself in public, and everyone acts as if nothing happened? The world yawns. Costello and the Attractions borrow a special effect from the Beatles (reversed tape of acoustic guitar, perhaps) to end this happy homecoming song.
Costello begins "I Want You" with an uncharacteristically tender ballad-like verse, almost drowsy in his bliss. A harsh, dissonant guitar chord startles Costello out of his dream and he finds himself groveling at his darling's cheating feet.
Costello's agony drags on for more than six minutes in "I Want You." It is painful. He plays his unglamorous voice perfectly against the pathos; and a twisted, ugly guitar riff wrings Costello dry.
Apparently Costello doesn't need much more than six minutes to dwell on his melancholy.
He kicks back at the bitch in "Honey, Are You Straight Or Are You Blind?"
Costello turns the table on her and taunts her, "The news is out all over town and all these girls / Are taking turns at being you."
"Battered Old Bird" is a profile of wasted lives. Costello's characters, living in an apartment building, each take a turn playing the battered old bird. There is the landlady's husband, who returns from 10 years of ministry and is greeted with a curse in French.
Two old maids live on the first floor, next door to a man lost in his sleeping pills and sweet sherry. Upstairs is the writer. "And the typewriter's rattling all through the night / He's burgundy for breakfast tight."
Costello's battered old birds stay in their pigeon holes, wasting away in their wasted lives.
In "Poor Napoleon" Costello plots his lover's death:
"Bare wires from the socket to the bed where you embraced that girl / Did you ever think there's far too many people in the world?" He ponders the planet's condition as he prepares for a barbecue in bed.
The song is frightfully unsettling, and Costello's habit of switching from second-person to third-person narrative only deepens the mystery.
Blood and Chocolate is a powerful, but often bleak account of the world around him. Costello's stunning images might be too much to swallow for listeners with weak stomachs, and the record almost certainly will be ignored by local radio stations.
Blood and Chocolate is a guts and brains record. Put it on if you think you can handle it.
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