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Q. What do you get when you cross the ex-Dexy's, Bureau horn section, a string accompaniment, the Attractions rhythm section, two female back up singers, the Madness dynamic production duo of Langer and Winstanley, and non-trivial lyrics sung with a soulful flair?
A. Elvis Costello's most positive and tuneful album since Get Happy!, and one of the most thought-provoking albums to be released so far this year.
Punch The Clock comes as a follow up to the over-calculated Imperial Boredom LP of last year, but owes mor to his earlier work from the Armed Forces to Get Happy! period.
Nowhere to be found is the "man, in the spotlight" impression given by the production techniques of his last two albums, in which his voice is mixed loud into the forefront. Here the vocals are mixed loud enough to catch his knife-twisting wordplay, but not as to overpower his always inventive musical arrangements.
There are two songs however, which to aid their emotional impact, are left sparse. Both "Pills and Soap" and "Shipbuilding" leave Elvis alone with only his voice to bear the weight of the songs sadness.
"Pills and Soap," done with an accompaniment of Steve Nieve's piano and a cold, emotionless hand-clap, contains the most cuttingly cynical statement Costello has ever made concerning government:
The sugar-coated pill is getting bitterer still
You think your country needs you but you know it never will
So pack up your troubles in a stolen handbag
Don't dilly dally boys rally round the flag...
Still more questions concerning government and the people's relationship to the country in which they live raised by the Falklands incident come to light in Costello's "Shipbuilding." The story is concerned with an economically depressed shipbuilding town that is set on its feet again with the advent of the Falklands crisis.
The song, written by Costello and co-producer Clive Langer, was originally sung by Robert Wyatt. Although Chet Baker's wistful trumpet solo beautifully compliments Costello's somewhat strained lament, Wyatt's interpretation has an effortless, heartfelt compassion that Costello could never achieve.
Although musical arrangements have been a major point of interest in Costello's work, his lyrics have always been the highlight. Punch the Clock has no shortcomings in this aspect.
The current single, "Every Day I Write the Book," is a prime example of his flexibility as a writer in being able to use a format best suited to the message he wants to relate. With "Every Day," Costello has chosen an R & B style not unlike Smokey Robinson, and pulls it off surprisingly well:
Chapter One we didn't really get along
Chapter Two I think I fell in love with you
You said you'd stand by me in the middle of Chapter Three
But you were up to your old tricks in Chapters Four, Five and Six.
As a contrast, there's "The Invisible Man," in which Costello assumes the Ray Davies style to turn an obscure rhyme while paying more attention to rhythm and the comment being made.
I was committed to life and then commuted to the outskirts
With all other love in the world,
Living for thirty minutes at a time with a break in the middle for adverts
In much the same way Get Happy! had a basis in R & B, so it is with Punch the Clock. Never before has Costello let loose with ouch full-bodied soul. "T.K.O. Boxing Day" sounds just like something Arthur Conley might have belted out at a mid-sixties Stax/Volt revue and it's not too hard to imagine Sam and Dave crooning to the wheeze and whine of the Hammond organ on "The World and His Wife."
Punch the Clock confirms Elvis Costello to be a cuttingly articulate wordsmith capable of expressing pointed statements as well as devising chart-topping pop. Dig it!
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