He is the kid you used to bully at school, the bespectacled, short haired swot.
The aggresive snarl of a wounded tiger seems out of place — but it is all part of the Elvis Costello make-up.
Behind the image is one of the seventies brightest rock brains, who has carved out a unique place for his own brand of music.
The songs are short, infectiously melodic and catchy, often breezing around the sixties Farfisa sound.
Costello's new album Get Happy is the perfect example — a collection of 20 snappy songs carrying on and developing the style of the successful Armed Forces and This Year's Model albums.
The visual image is purely photographic. The songs and the stage act pack the proverbial punch right between the ears.
At Swindon's giant Oasis centre last weekend, Costello and his band The Attractions showed just how powerful that punch can be.
Despite obvious sound problems, the band whipped through a set of songs from the last three albums, hammering it home with an encore of singles, "Oliver's Army," "I Can't Stand Up" and "Pump It Up."
The set also hangs on to the older songs like "Watching The Detectives" and "I Don't Want To Go To Chelsea," interspersed between riveting versions of "Green Shirt" and "Lipstick Vogue."
The uneven sound balance highlighted the excellent Costello rhythms in the songs — unfortunately often at the expense of the lyrics.
Consequently it was the better known songs, the singles, that came off best. The new album will satisfy the curiosity raised by the other numbers.
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