Lodi News-Sentinel, May 4, 2002: Difference between revisions
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At some point New Wave became Old Wave, and Elvis Costello has been cranking out records longer than the other Elvis did. | |||
Like his namesake, the British Elvis started strong, sank into a slump and then mounted a career comeback. ''When I Was Cruel'', his first solo album since 1996's ''All This Useless Beauty'', ranks with his best work in the past couple of decades. | |||
He wrote all 15 songs with a Silvertone electric guitar and 15-watt amplifier and the approach produced a handful of handsome tunes with "rowdy rhythm," as he calls it. | |||
The opening cut, the autobiographical "45," could pass as an outtake from his first album, and that's high praise. "Tear Off Your Own Head," "Dissolve" and "Daddy Can I Turn This?" also sound great loud. | |||
The best of the slow tunes is the album's seven-minute centerpiece, "When I Was Cruel No. 2," which includes spaghetti-Western guitar, a repeating sample of the '60s Italian pop singer Mina and a lyric that quotes Abba's "Dancing Queen." Mamma mia, it's marvelous. | |||
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