Trouser Press, October 1982

Not So Silly Love Songs Elvis Costello and the Attractions Inperial Bedroom Columbia FC38157 By Scott Isler You expect more from an Elvis Costello album, and on Imperial Bedroom you certainly get it. The 15 songs here are so densely written and tightly arranged that the slightest alteration would probably casue the record's contents to fly apart like an overwound mainspring. Bouncing back from his ambitious but indifferently received country album, Almost Blue, Costello has returned to pop with a vengeance. The music on Imperial Bedroom sounds like something you might hear on rock radio. Costello puts it to the service of his diistinctive lyrics, though, transmuting accepted song structures in the process. The result is his most baroque album since Armed Forces, with a fascinating but intimidating sheen. This page is incomplete.