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Elvis Costello not only takes us behind closed doors in the Imperial Bedroom, he lifts up the rug and sets loose a horde of demons.
He doesn't do it as a mischievous voyeur. The demons are his and they are ours. They're the demons of Sal Forlenza, whose abstract Snakecharmer & Reclining Octopus serves as the album's cover. What, after all, is more imperial than the bedroom?
My only complaint about Imperial Bedroom is that this would have been an appropriate time for Costello to trim his song count. After 15 tracks, all this angst gets to be a bit much.
For the most part, though, there's just enough variety among the best songs. "Shabby Doll" and "Little Savage" would be the most familiar to fans. Their hard-rocking, fight-back attitudes serve as dams against the welling "Tears Before Bedtime" and "Almost Blue."
The '40s torch piano quality provided by Steve Nieve makes the latter song particularly heart-wrenching. Nieve also makes expert use of orchestration to heighten other songs.
The orchestration in "...And In Every Home" is so heavy-handed that satirism becomes a weapon in the war between the sexes. "Boy With a Problem," co-written by Squeeze's Chris Difford, is relatively more light-hearted.
Some demons have to have a sense of humor.
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