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Elvis Costello seemed to disappear from the studio for a while a decade or so ago. Then in 2018 he came back with the first of what feels like a tripartite resurgence, 2018’s Look Now. The classic pop sounds of that album led to the surprising and scattered Hey Clockface from 2020. After a detour for a Spanish-language reworking of This Year’s Model, he continues his re-energized period, maybe drawing some extra verve from unexpected projects. The Boy Named If arrives with a burst of early punkish Costello and the fully charged Imposters. The album fills out his return with a series of sharp and tricky songs.
He opens the album with a ’50s guitar burst and singing, “Farewell, okay.” It’s a sly way to start things, but he quickly turns the phrase into a kiss-off. Costello hasn’t come to The Boy Named If for careful Cole Porter compositions; this record comes with a glint and a smirk, from Costello’s lyrical content to Steve Nieve’s inimitable organ. For most of these 13 tracks, the band (despite recording separately) rollicks along as if they haven’t aged since 1978. The songs, despite varying moods and topics, usually match the sound with wit and misdirection.
While the songs do tell different stories, Costello suggests there’s a theme to the album, explaining that it carries a rough theme of boyishness and the need to grow up. The Boy Named If rarely feels like a concept album, though; if that thinking guided Costello’s songwriting, it doesn’t dictate the flow of the album. The title track pushes the playfulness of the record more than it does a central conceit. “If” represents “your secret self,” Costello has said, the imaginary person you blame for your own antics. “If” could just about be a typo for “id,” running with a thoughtlessness and a sort of fanciful charm (until you get punched in an actual bar fright, at least).
The album only falters when it deviates from this sort of attitude (musically or lyrically). “Paint the Red Rose Blue” is an effective song on its own, a challenging character study with a smooth melody, but it doesn’t work in the context of the album. Hey Clockface showed that variety can be its own pleasure, but in an album this charged, slowing down for that sort of reflection does less to vary the album and more to simply jam in an aside.
The album quickly rights itself with a second half just as strong as the first. (“Trick out the Truth” makes an error similar to that of “Paint,” but anything can be forgiven of a song that references “Lydia the Tattooed Lady.”) The band bounces through some rock and some New Wave, thinking about misunderstood relationships and criminal intentions. The album reaches a conclusion with “Mr. Crescent,” a sad, slow number that still fits the album’s primary scope. The title character, rather than being a rascal, turns out to be a victim of a previous generation’s hurt. If the album comes of age, it does so here, where the repercussions of recklessness turn into melancholy mess. In Costello’s hands, it’s no morality play, but a reckoning. “Farewell,” we learn, “isn’t always okay,” but everything that leads to it might be more complicated than expected. Costello writes with storyteller’s sensibility and a rocker’s attitude, and with the Imposters willing to indulge a little id, The Boy Named If becomes as rousing a coming-of-age album as you could ask for.
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