Arizona Republic, October 11, 2018

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Elvis Costello returns to 'Imperial' form
on first album in five years, 'Look Now'


Ed Masley

It's been five years since Wise Up Ghost, an album-length collaboration with the Roots. That's the longest stretch Elvis Costello has ever gone between releases. And if that's how long it took to get to Look Now, which releases Friday, it was worth it.

The sophisticated chamber-pop arrangements suggest a return to the form he first explored in depth on Imperial Bedroom, a 1982 release produced by Beatles engineer Geoff Emerick. And it does so while holding its own against that masterpiece, perhaps because it was conceived after revisiting that album on the road.

Costello himself invoked both Imperial Bedroom and a subsequent collaboration with Burt Bacharach as helpful frames of reference in a press release, saying, "I knew if we could make an album with the scope of Imperial Bedroom and some of the beauty and emotion of Painted From Memory, we would really have something."

Look Now ever features three new Bacharach co-writes, two of which extend the spirit of collaboration to Costello's writing partner guesting on piano — "He's Given Me Things," "Don't Look Now" and a pathos-laden portrait of a daughter confronting her father's infidelity called "Photographs Can Lie."

There are also occasional echoes of Motown and Brill Building pop, a hint of the New Orleans funk groove he worked on that album with Allen Toussaint and a bit of the sonic experimentation that made 2002's When I Was Cruel such a welcome addition to the catalog.

He even tries his hand at Philly soul on the richly orchestrated "Suspect My Tears," slipping into a silky falsetto to complete the mood.

It could be argued that there's nothing here we haven't heard him do some variation on before. But when your comfort zone encompasses the kind of range Costello brings to the proceedings in the course of these 12 songs, it hardly qualifies as staying in your lane.

One zone he doesn't get to here is the more raucous side of his vocabulary. There's no echo of the punk-inspired urgency he brought to This Year's Model, Blood & Chocolate or even his previous album to feature his long-running musical partners in crime, the Imposters, 2008's Momofuku.

Which is not to say this album doesn't rock when it chooses to do so. Consider the bass-driven opening track, "Under Lime."

An effervescent blast of Motown-flavored pop that veers off into Sgt. Pepper-flavored orchestration right on cue when Costello sings "When the band starts to play," it's a lyrical sequel of sorts to "Jimmie Standing in The Rain," an old-timey highlight of 2010's T Bone Burnett-produced National Ransom.

"Burnt Sugar is So Bitter," a track he wrote with Carole King at some point in the '90s, is even more upbeat, with punch-drunk horns and female backing vocals, making the most of the insistent groove laid down by the Imposters' formidable rhythm section.

Drummer Pete Thomas has been with Costello since the birth of the Attractions, who had his back on a dizzying run of unassailable releases in the '70s and '80s. Bassist Davey Faragher, faced with the unenviable task of replacing the great Bruce Thomas in 2001, has rarely sounded more at home.

"Unwanted Number" rocks with real authority and boasts some great piano fills from keyboard wizard Steve Nieve, Costello's most valuable musical foil since those first Attractions records. "Mr. & Mrs. Hush" has a swaggering funk vibe and features Costello investing the lyrics with more attitude than the prevailing tone of the album, which clearly favors more subdued material.

Co-produced by Costello and Sebastian Krys, a 12-time Latin Grammy winner, Look Now fleshes out the handiwork of the Imposters with woodwinds, strings and horns as well as striking group vocal arrangements.

Lyrically, he sets the tone, in "Under Lime," with "It's a long way down from the high horse you're on / When you stumble and then you're thrown."

And it doesn't get much sunnier from there.

"Burnt Sugar is So Bitter" more than lives up to the promise of its downbeat title, setting the scene with "She said 'What is it that I've done that you want me to be punished' when she woke up one day to find that he had started to vanish."

In the devastating "Stripping Paper," the album's emotional centerpiece, the narrator is stripping paper from the walls while lost in the emotion each new layer of that couple's history reveals.

It's the sort of emotional payoff he's always excelled at capturing, both lyrically and vocally. It almost feels like something Jimmy Webb would write. And there are plenty of those moments here, reaffirming Costello's position at the forefront of his generation's most gifted composers.


Tags: Look NowSteve NievePete ThomasDavey FaragherCarole KingBurt BacharachSebastian KrysThe ImpostersUnder LimeUnwanted NumberMr. & Mrs. HushHe's Given Me ThingsDon't Look NowPhotographs Can LieStripping PaperSuspect My TearsBurnt Sugar Is So BitterWise Up GhostThe RootsImperial BedroomThe BeatlesGeoff EmerickPainted From MemoryNew OrleansAllen ToussaintWhen I Was CruelThis Year's ModelBlood & ChocolateMomofukuJimmie Standing In The RainT Bone BurnettNational RansomThe AttractionsBruce Thomas

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Arizona Republic, October 11, 2018


Ed Masley reviews Look Now.

Images

2018-10-09 Metro UK photo 01 jom.jpg
Photo credit: James O'Mara


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