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Several things conspire to make the post-punk laureate’s latest as thorny as it is seductive. It’s the sort of album that initially keeps you at arms’ length only to draw you in that much more powerfully as you peruse its complexity. Shelving the Attractions, Costello taps such diverse musicians as Roger McGuinn, Paul McCartney, T Bone Burnett, The Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Allen Toussaint, Tom Petty keyboardist Benmont Tench, Chrissie Hynde, Cait O’Riordan, Donal Lunny, guitarist Marc Ribot and percussionist Michael Blair from Tom Waits’ band and fiddler Steve Wickham from the Waterboys.
On 14 painstakingly crafted songs (15 on the compact disc), he employs the musicians like different repertory companies. Then, mixing, matching, overdubbing and editing, Elvis directs a series of small motion pictures, linked primarily by his own ragged and wrung-out vocals. The music ranges all over the stylistic map, as the credits of Byrds, Beatles, New Orleans R&B stalwarts, Irish folkies and grating noisemakers might indicate. The influences and instruments (horns, bells, marimbas, harmonium, accordion, mandolin, hubcaps) pile up into an overwhelming heap during early listenings but gradually sort themselves out into discrete gems. Slowly, the distance narrows between the artfully arranged music and the immediacy of Costello's wrenching vocals. The outward-looking psychological and political themes — other people's offenses, obsessions, oppression, losses and lessons — become personal. The protagonist's anger on “Tramp the Dirt Down" (on Margaret Thatcher's grave) becomes Costello's.
The fragmented lyrics are often blurred in the singing, but, as always, certain words and hooks match perfectly and won't turn you loose. ‘'Veronica,’’ written with the cute Beatle, is the closest thing to a single. The unnerving chorus of ‘‘Let Him Dangle,’' the tumbling refrain of “Deep Dark Truthful Mirror,’ the music hall chorus ‘‘God's Comic,"’ the imagery of ‘‘Satellite'’ and a dozen other shards keep stabbing long after the the needle’s been lifted.
Knotty, ambitious and obsessive, Spike turns Tin Pan Alley values inside out and turns the outside world into a series of meticulously wrought internal dramas, securing Costello's place as a supreme architect of anti-pop.
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