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The weeks after the holidays are usually the slowest of the year for new music, but this January has gotten off to a fast start.
That’s been true for marquee acts such as The Weeknd and Elvis Costello, who have released full-length albums, as well as for a wide range of artists who have put out new songs teasing upcoming projects and tours.
It’s time, then, for digging into new music while looking ahead in hopes that the current COVID surge will soon peak and subside, and fans can get back to relatively anxiety-free communal listening. Here are a whole lot of new sounds to get through these chilly weeks of winter.
Elvis Costello & the Imposters, “The Boy Named If.”
Any time an artist with such a significant oeuvre — this is the British songwriter’s 32nd album — puts out new music this good, the temptation is to call it his best album since ... when? 1978’s “This Year’s Model”? 1986’s “Blood & Chocolate”?
Instead, let’s just say that Costello has been on a creative roll of late, starting in 2018 with “Look Now” and continuing in 2020 with “Hey Clockface,” and that “The Boy Named If” is clearly the best of the bunch.
“The Boy Named If” is a 13-track collection of thematically linked songs that hit hard from the opening thwack of Pete Thomas’ drums on “Farewell, OK.” The album’s full title is “A Boy Named If (And Other Children’s Tales),” and Costello has explained in the album notes that “If” is the nickname a child gives to an imaginary friend, “your secret self ... the one you blame for the shattered crockery and the hearts you break, even your own.”
Never fear, though. You don’t need to follow the story to enjoy the songs, which are uniformly strong, as is Costello’s singing, on the self-doubting “What If I Can’t Give You Anything but Love” and the particularly fetching “Paint the Red Rose Blue.”
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