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Elvis Costello

3/5
Secret, Profane And Sugarcane

In ’86, for his tenth record, Elvis Costello ditched his backing Attractions and headed for Nashville to record King Of America with session musicians, including two fellas nicknamed ‘T-Bone’. These were the first steps of an ongoing itinerant stretch of Costello’s career that saw the Brit wander far off his beaten new-wave path to explore honky-tonk, baroque and opera music.

After two decades, Costello has returned to Tennessee, again teaming with producer-collaborator T-Bone Burnett, who sprinkles Yankee-Doodle dust and whiskey over twisting antebellum folk. Only now Costello has the confidence and curiosity to step fully into the past, draping his increasingly romantic-English poetry (‘Would their limbs bronze insult to the sun’) over fiddles and mandolin. It’s all a generic exercise befitting a maturing man who’s not afraid to be called a little old-hat. Fortunately, his pen and voice – still a mix of battered trumpet and aching teenager – keep you leaning to the speakers.
Brent DiCrescenzo
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