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In Stardust Memories, Woody Allen played a film director visited by aliens who told him they were fans of his films, “particularly the early, funny ones”. When Allen questioned whether he should be doing something more meaningful with his life, they encouraged him to tell funnier jokes, as that’s what people wanted. Elvis Costello could probably relate, as critics often wish he’d make albums like his early, angry ones.
While his 32nd album is not too angry, it certainly contains plenty of the old fire. Last year’s Hey Clockface, his first lockdown record, was a varied but disjointed experience that included everything from blaring junkyard rock to spoken-word poetry over orchestration. Although Costello and each of his band members recorded their parts for The Boy Named If separately in three different countries, it is more cohesive and satisfying.
A concept album of sorts, it investigates the passage from childhood to adulthood, from innocence to experience, and the rocky road that can be. And there’s no better way to announce it than Farewell, OK, which opens with a squall of overdriven noise from Costello’s Fender Jazzmaster, then slams into the kind of vein-popping rock he hasn’t indulged in so well since 1986’s Blood & Chocolate. Costello has often gently poked fun at his guitar skills, famously saying he has little hands of concrete, but he shines on the angular Marc Ribot-style curlicues of The Difference or the heavy riffing on What If I Can’t Give You Anything But Love.
The Imposters respond in kind, Pete Thomas’s seemingly ageless dynamic drum style in full effect, keyboardist Steve Nieve sounding like a carnival one moment and a one-man spy-theme factory the next, and bassist Davey Faragher really coming into his own, finding the nexus between nimble and beefy.
Speaking of innocence and experience, Costello has now conquered so many styles that some of his work could become florid and over-cooked. Although he ranges across psychedelic pop (Penny Halfpenny), bruised balladry (Paint the Red Rose Blue) and a dash of theatrics (The Man You Love to Hate), there’s a directness here that prevents the songs wandering too far into “look at me!” territory. If you want parallels from his past, Imperial Bedroom, Blood & Chocolate and Trust are the closest ancestors. And as the aliens would attest, they’re some of his best “early, funny” ones.
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