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With Trust, Elvis Costello gives us his sixth chronicle of frustration and his fifth full-fledged lp. Another Nick Lowe production, the fourteen new tracks that comprise the album surface surprisingly fast on the heels of the recent, highly enjoyable anthology of outtakes, British singles, and B-sides, Taking Liberties. As usual, Costello has wasted no time.
Dominated by a keyboard-bass sound and the noticeable absence of any extensive guitar work (except maybe on "From a Whisper to a Scream" and "Fish 'n' Chip Paper") Trust is musically simpler to Get Happy, the 20 song marathon milestone Of 1980. And since Get Happy was the product of Elvis and the Attraction's last genuine visit to the studio until now, this similarity should he neither surprising, nor held as a flaw when judging Trust.
Some may reminisce over the progress Costello brilliantly made with each of his first four albums and be full of questions or suspicions that Elvis and the band may he running out of spark potential, which was the characteristic that originally gained him attention in the first place. Both Taking Liberties, which was collected from about a three year period, and Trust may lead sonic to suspect Elvis of hitting a country and western rut, or at least a rut devoid of genuine rock and roll.
Hopefully, few among us will he so narrow minded. Trust is a varied, incredibly dynamic effort that unfortunately may have just as well committed suicide with some of Costello's fans for the single crime of spotlighting keyboardist Steve Nieve and bass player Bruce Thomas in many novel and off-beat ways. Drummer Pete Thomas is no slouch either though, but the Attraction's sound does tend to center around Elvis' voice, and the spontaneous, schizophrenic playing of Nieve and B. Thomas. I wouldn't have it any other way.
Unfortunately for some, this arrangement leaves little room for the more guitar oriented sound that some listeners require as a prerequisite before they will laud a work of music as rock and roll. Their loss.
What the Trust approach does allow, in both its sparseness as well as its versatility (with an extra sideman here and there), is a variety of songs that are welcome, and surprising, even when the playing is not.
"Clubland," the first cut and the one released in the U.S. prior to appearance of the LP rousingly kicks off a side one during which Elvis echoes and updates some of his previous themes. "Clowntime is Over," from Get Happy, asked the question: "Who's making lover's lane safe again for lovers?" On "Lover's Walk," Elvis now warns to "be on guard where lover's walk." "Lover's Walk," with its "Magic Bus" style drum part reminds one of "Pump it Up" period vocals: quick and almost __ __ ___ character__ __ ___ recent works in that Elvis is still snot-nosed, and still cocky, yet much more confident. But while the delivery is confident, the singer is still the last great cynic.
Although the presence of Rumour guitarist Martin Belmont is relatively transparent, the vocal duet between Elvis and Squeeze vocalist Glenn Tilbrook on "From a Whisper to a Scream" is the highlight of a well-stacked side two. When Tilbrook's voice, which in contrast to Elvis' sounds syrupy and trained, follows Costello in the bouncy, Squeezish melody, the Attractions remove all of the stops and clearly make is their own.
The single major improvement that has been made with Trust over Get Happy deals with the effectiveness of each individual cut. Get Happy contained more moments of dynamite in twenty cuts than many artists succeed in detonating in a healthy career. But Get Happy's greatest flaw was that some of it initially struck the listener as a blur — as mere tidbits of songs that could be developed into much more. In a way I felt cheated upon that record's release, as if I had heard the Cliff notes for some longer, even more incredible work.
This time out, Elvis opted for less titles, slightly longer songs and an overall more accessible finished product, without sacrifice, in essence. Elvis is finally seeking our trust.
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