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Elvis Costello, one of the few survivors of the much-heralded British "re-invasion" of 1976, has never made any secret of his passion for American popular music.
He gained fame as a Buddy Holly lookalike, and his last album Almost Blue was recorded in Nashville, Tenn., and came as close to being country music as any trans-Atlantic New Waver can expect to get.
This is not to minimize his talents. He has an innate sense of melody and writes some of the best lyrics around.
And to say that he draws inspiration from American pop is not to say he imitates it or even parodies it. With an outsider's eye, he adopts what he likes or what suits his purpose and adapts it to fit a larger vision.
With Imperial Bedroom he has turned his dark eye in a new direction, towards pure pop in the fashion of Frank Sinatra, and comes up with one of his best works to date.
Through his many adventures and experiments, Costello has always had one constant theme: alienation, the feeling of being a stranger in your own home (to paraphrase one of his songs).
And with new tunes like "Shabby Doll," "Man Out Of Time" and "Town Cryer," he continues that theme.
Dark, spare music is effectively bound together by tense, exciting vignettes of hellbent guitar and screaming vocals. But in the end, as with any Costello album, it's the lyrics that are the main selling point. And, as usual with Costello, they arc an effective selling point indeed.
Sinatra visits Sartre and delivers a Grade A album.
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