Q, October 1986

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Q magazine
Q Special Edition

UK & Ireland magazines

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Turbulent

Elvis Costello misses the mark

Mark Cooper

Elvis Costello & The Attractions
Blood & Chocolate
3 stars (out of 5) reviews3 stars (out of 5) reviews3 stars (out of 5) reviews3 stars (out of 5) reviews3 stars (out of 5) reviews

Elvis Costello's career now consists of a spiral of sidesteps and multiplying identities, all designed to accommodate the extraordinary fecundity of his writing. The King Of America has changed his pet name to Napoleon Dynamite for this second collection of the year, brought back The Attractions and returned to producer Nick Lowe for the first time since Trust. The resulting shindig is Costello's noisiest record since Get Happy!, replete with the usual paranoiac wordplay and love stories that quickly turn to murder mysteries.

Every time Elvis thinks he's found happiness, he turns up a third party hiding in the pillows. Yet for all the turbulence of the playing and the dexterity of the arrangements, Blood & Chocolate lacks both the variety and sense of surprise one looks for in a Costello LP.

Perhaps this is because he is yet to replace the driven anger of his first records with either a new persona or a style of songwriting that doesn't depend on his own idiosyncratic delivery. A "story" song like the slow-moving "Battered Old Bird" throws up a storm of seedy and surreal lodging house images but never quite attains a life outside its traffic jam of scenarios and the uncertain histrionics of its delivery. Only on the current single "Tokyo Storm Warning" does Elvis use his machine gun facility to searing emotional effect, the images of tourist alienation tumbling over themselves like a contemporary "Subterranean Homesick Blues."

Elsewhere the wordplay is too clever for many of the songs' emotional good. Even "Tokyo Storm Warning" only works well because it's hysterical from start to finish. There are no poor numbers here but it's becoming increasingly difficult to tell a good Costello song from those that are merely run-of-the-mill.

As Costello has matured, he's replaced emotion with skill. That transition is almost complete and has left his records with intermittent flashes of genius illuminating wastes of skillful shadowplay, full of sound and fury and signifying either nothing or too much. Blood & Chocolate is a good Elvis Costello record. For me that's no longer quite enough.


Tags: Blood & ChocolateKing Of AmericaNapoleon DynamiteThe AttractionsNick LoweTrustGet Happy!!Battered Old BirdTokyo Storm WarningSubterranean Homesick Blues

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Q, No. 1, October 1986


Mark Cooper reviews Blood & Chocolate.

Images

1986-10-00 Q clipping 01.jpg
Clipping.

Cover and contents page.
1986-10-00 Q cover.jpg1986-10-00 Q page 03.jpg

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