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Listening to the densely layered Mighty Like a Rose is like fighting through a thicket of briars, knowing that a field of honeysuckle waits somewhere on the other side. Elvis Costello, as always, makes us work for our pleasure.
Mighty is filled with intricate melodies; obscure, endlessly wonderful lyrics; rapturous musicianship; near-perfect production. Maybe it's not Costello's best then again, he's set some impossibly high standards for himself but it certainly shouldn't be missed.
Costello has taken a fair amount of critical heat for his bitter lyrics on Mighty. One writer even suggested that Costello was fine as an angry young man but that he was tiresome as an angry old man.
But who said Costello has to be happy? The deal is that he be good, that he write better songs than 90 percent of his peers. On Mighty Like a Rose he does just that.
And it's not as if Mighty is completely dark. There's humor here, though it's the caustic variety. The best example is "The Other Side of Summer," Costello's answer to the Beach Boys and the Summer of Love.
The melody is as bright and hopeful as a Brian Wilson tune, but the lyrics detail "foaming breakers of the poisonous surf" and make reference to a "millionaire who said 'imagine no possessions.' " By the time it ends, we've seen completely the other side of summer, where reality lords it over perceived innocence.
Another strong song, one of the album's best, is "So Like Candy," co-written with Paul McCartney. Costello's girl is gone, and he's left with the refuse ("here lie the records that she scratched / And on the sleeve I find a note attached...").
"Candy" is a moody five minutes of pop-noir, defined by Costello's superb singing alternately gentle and consumed and his reverberating guitar, which lends an edgy atmosphere similar to that of his earlier "Watching the Detectives."
It's classic Costello, and so is Mighty Like a Rose. Just don't give up on it too soon; those briars can be troublesome, but they thin out soon enough.
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