A lot of ink has been devoted to harking Elvis's return to the substance (if not the style) of his early triumphs, My Aim Is true and This Years Model, with this release. While both of those albums are rightfully viewed as classics, it's great to hear Elvis update his sound while maintaining his edge.
Working with Leo Pearson (U2, various electronica artists), and a number of members of the Attractions, EC has cut an album that rocks with the biting wit that has been his trademark for the past 25 years. It's a welcome addition to his catalogue, and it's a real fun album to listen to. It's also a welcome relief from the collaborative projects that have occupied his time over the last few years.
Elvis is at his best on a number of tunes on this disc. "Tear Your Own Head Off" has some blistering guitar work, and is the best song from the late seventies to be recorded in years. "Soul For Hire" has some deep, ominous sonic textures at work, much like "Watching The Detectives" (allthough it is not reggae-based). There is great use of horns on a number of tracks, particularly "Episode of Blonde". And "When I Was Cruel NO. 2" sounds like a Portishead tune, particularly with its eerie samples and tape loops. It's not something you'd expect from Elvis, but then again, his introduction of the unexpected has generally made for the best tunes on his many projects (the 50's style organ on "The Beat" comes to mind).
This album ranks right up there with "My Aim Is True", and more importantly "This Year's Model" in terms of wrenching tunefulness. Fortunately it is a breakthrough, as opposed to a revival. It's nice to hear an artist who knows what sounds work best for him, and take that to a new level. I hope Joe Jackson listens to this record and tries a similar path.

There's nothing worse than being a pop dinosaur like, say, Robert Plant. Once you've managed to outgrow the style that made your career, in so many sound-bytes, where in the world do you go with the gains? Like Paul Simon, Joe Jackson, Pete Townshend, John Waters, Stevie Winwood, Paul McCartney and dozens of other performers who have discovered that the visitation of middle age upon their careers is often fatal, Elvis Costello entered a period of intensive experimentation in the early 1990s. This isn't anything particularly new, nor is it all that unusual. When his career began to enter the underworld of rarefied taste, and his growth as a musician and songwriter demanded that he free himself from the relative constraints that in the early 1980s gained him one of the most loyal fan bases of any pop performer since the 1960s, Costello collaborated with string quartets, even co-wrote with Burt Bacharach, trying hard to glean from his obvious talent something more enduring and personally satisfying than musically hanging out with teenagers amd teeny-boppers for the rest of his life. Of course, growing up alongside your original audience is more difficult than it might seem, and though Costello's ambitious experiments were critically well-received, and sometimes even lauded for their expansiveness and beauty, "When I Was Cruel"--a conscious return to the roots of a seminal career--reveals there is still vitriol in the rocker with the shady voice. And that's a good thing.

The mainstream press may be all excited in its typically shallow fashion over Costello's return to hard rocking music, calling it his first "loud" recording since "Mighty Like A Rose," but even a cursory listen to "When I Was Cruel" also shows that Costello isn't through with experimentation. Instead of trying to extend the breadth of his songwriting, something he successfully attempted with "Spike," or fiddling with arrangement, "When I Was Cruel" is a foray into effect, dissonance and coloration. The songs are, of course, typically Costello in form. But listen closer: the industrial grunge of his guitar is stretched almost surreally; his take on Latino pop is practically snide; the picture he draws is etched on black rubber. Only one song, "Blue Window," even remotely resembles to old Elvis Costello. The rest is indeed something entirely new. In fact, it's almost archetypical in its scope and range. Younger groups that are only now encountering what Costello began to react to over ten years ago could do well to listen to how one of the finest songwriters of the last twenty years has negotiated his early fame and his inevitable maturity as a musician.

Costello ended the 20th century with PAINTED FROM MEMORY and his cover of "She," and many people thought he had lost his edge. It was yet another unpredictable turn from a man who had long ago proved that he was not going to be pigeonholed as just another "punk rocker." And while the work with Bachrach was in many ways another artistic triumph, one couldn't help but fear that the days of Blood & Chocolate were long gone.

Last year, he as much as confirmed this with his gentle and nuanced album with Swedish mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie Von Otter. Surely, this was the end of the thrash and noise of youth-- it was time to settle down and write symphonies and such...

Cut to 2002. WHEN I WAS CRUEL is Costello's return to the world of "rowdy" music, and yet it isn't a return at all. Some of it may feel like Blood & Chocolate's next door neighbor, but the sound is all brand new. This album is darker and funnier, playful and apocalyptic, like a mix of Dylan's last two albums thrown in a stew with a car full of clowns and some Ethiopian pop songs. Lazy critics will say he's "back and he's angry", but there aren't any songs of spiteful lovers here-- the concerns are more worldly and viewed with a spiky wit that gurgles just below the sonic soup.

WHEN I WAS CRUEL is the kind of album that is so good you can't help but hunger for what he's going to do next, be it pop, country, soul, or classical. But until that next one comes along, there is so much to enjoy here. Turn off the lights, turn up the volume, and howl at the moon...

SOUR MILK COW

A few notes into the opening track, my wife turned to me and said, "Elvis rocks!" Yes, this is being ballyhooed as Elvis' first rocker since All This Useless Beauty, his last album with the Attractions. Others have called it his best since Blood and Chocolate.

I dunno. I really liked Painted From Memory, and Elvis' live performances in the past few years have been wonderful, so I wasn't looking for any return to form...as far as I'm concerned, the last time Elvis really lost it was Spike and Mighty Like A Rose, and even those sound pretty good these days.

But this new one, well...Yes! This is what I really want Elvis to be doing, rocking, spewing bile, reflecting, singing in the classic Elvis voice, getting Steve Nieve to kick the Farfisa in but also adorn the songs with his incredible arrangements, tetting Pete Thomas to bash in the least and most subtle fashion, and here bring a new bass player, ex-Cracker Davey Faragher, into the fold. Elvis' singing is great, the songs are fascinating and rock hard, the arrangements are cool, and the lyrics...well it'll take a few dozen more listens but I'm sure I'll get 'em.

All right, I have to admit that WHEN I WAS CRUEL is the first EC album I have bought since BLOOD AND CHOCOLATE. It�s not that I didn�t like Elvis anymore, I was just getting �into� other things. Well, I�m pleased to report that WHEN I WAS CRUEL has been a very happy purchase for me, and has even got me going back and listening to (in some cases looking for) the music of my youth: English Beat, The Specials, Squeeze, The Clash, Flash and the Pan, just to name a very few.

I�ve been an EC fan since the late seventies. No, this album is not a return to THIS YEAR�S MODEL. This is an album that stands proudly on its own. Even if I had never heard of Elvis Costello I would be blown away by this record. What a great selection of songs! Starting with the bouncy �45� then sliding in to the appropriately creepy �Spooky Girlfriend,� then crash bang into �Tear Off Your Own Head.� The real stand-out tracks on this album for me are "When I Was Cruel No.2,� �Petals,� �Tart,� �Dissolve� and the in-your-face-like-it-or-not indictment �Alibi.� (I love the James Brown reference and play on words: �Papa�s . . . got a brand new . . . alibi. Alibi�)

Trying to pick a favorite track is almost impossible. It�s much easier to point out the one song that I haven�t grown too fond of as of yet: �My Blue Window.� And that�s not a bad song. For me it just doesn�t seem to fit. So far, though, I haven�t skipped this track on any listening, and that�s pretty good when my least favorite song on an album is still an enjoyable tune. Of course, it�s Elvis. And I see that at least one other reviewer picked this song out as one of their favorites, so there you are.

I don�t know the exact demographics of those who might buy this album (though I suspect it�s mostly people in their 30�s and 40�s) but I hope some younger listeners will pick this record up. I listen to the local �alternative rock� station from time to time, and while there is still some good music being put out here and there, so much of it seems the same. Every group wants to be some combination of Greenday, STP, Pearl Jam and Nirvana, as if that�s possible. 90% of the music seems to be driven by guitars going �chugga chug, chugga chug� and the singer whining about how he�s an outcast. Elvis never whines about being an outcast, he spits venom but never whines. Instead he churns up the disgust we all feel about how people treat each other sometimes, and whips it into an emotional frenzy. It�s cathartic, cleansing. EC is probably the only person that can actually make you feel good at the same time he reminds you what a jerk, he, you and the rest of the people in the world can be. Alibi.

For those of you who might have been longing for a return to MY AIM IS TRUE, THIS YEAR�S MODEL or ARMED FORCES . . . forget it. Anyone who�s been an EC fan for some time knows that Mr. McManus is a moving target, virtually impossible to pin down to one style. And who would want it any other way? WHEN I WAS CRUEL certainly contains a lot of Elvis that will be recognizable to long-time fans (not the least of which is the clever word play for which he�s famous), but like the very best of EC�s albums, this one has many fresh angles. If Elvis is back to anything, he�s back to the same old thing: that is, taking chances. Or should I say Taking Liberties?

Just remember: Every Elvis has his army. My advice: Join up!