This gentleman, seen recently on NBC's Saturday Night, has got to be an anachronism. Rolled up jeans, pigeon-toed stance, greasy hair, glasses and a guitar. If you didn't know when this record was made, you would naturally assume he stepped right out of the fifties.
And his music is short, rapid-fire bursts of genuine rock and roll. Despite the cut "I'm Not Angry," it is obvious Elvis is angry, and anger is where the steel of classic rock and roll is forged.
The beats are infectious, Costello's guitar work is thoroughly professional and the lyrics could sear raw meat at forty yards. "Alison," a line of which is borrowed for the title, is a devastating out-of-love song. Costello softly croons sorrow at his loss, but the listener is assured that this is not his only avenue of release.
"Mystery Dance," a short, fast rocker about love, asks a question never posed by the singles chartbusters. "I thought that she knew and she thought that I knew," laments Costello, at a speed reached only by Little Richard and persons suffering adrenalin overdoses.
The album features thirteen near-classic songs, the likes of which have not been seen for a long time. This is basic, fundamental rock, and a primer of the field. If you can't dance to this one, you don't have any knees.
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