Elvis Costello: Torchsong crooner

by Adam Arnold, ArtsEtc. Writer

Though it’s been years since he’s outgrown his overused Angry Young Man moniker, the observation is still regularly made that Elvis Costello has moved away from his punk/New Wave roots. Sometimes, as with last year’s When I Was Cruel, critics are so anxious for him to return to these roots that they proclaim he has, even when he clearly hasn’t.

It might finally be observed that the whole New Wave thing was a move away from his true roots; a convenient front to get the kids into his music, planning all along for his slow re-birth as this generation’s greatest crooner.

There are examples going back quite a ways, from “Sleep of the Just” on 1986’s King of America to “I Want to Vanish” from All This Useless Beauty, released 10 years later. And let’s not forget that his first huge single, “Alison,” is a far cry from punk rock. Given his early confession of love for the songs of Cole Porter and Rogers & Hart, his collaboration with Burt Bacharach seems less surprising and more inevitable.

Nonetheless, for many who appreciated Costello for his vitriol, the laid-back sound of his loungy efforts could only be appreciated, not fully enjoyed — although his scathing sarcasm can still be found even in this subtler context.

Then an album like North comes along, and our disappointment may reach new heights if we fail to see the album’s beauty. To be sure, its tempo is consistently subdued, and its anger is contained in a few bitter little lines like “Nothing I do can make you stay / I’m glad it will rain today,” from “You Left Me in the Dark,” the CD’s opening track. North‘s anger is quietly focused inward.

The special edition of the CD contains a DVD with three videos, each featuring Costello sitting at a rustic piano. He plunks through the album’s otherwise-absent title song and the bittersweet “Fallen,” (hell, the whole album is bittersweet) and postures through a lip-synch to the melancholy (another word for bittersweet) “Still.”

He mentions having written all the songs — which he unerringly describes as some of his most personal — over a very short time span. It is a cohesive collection, describing the failure of his marriage and the subsequent growth of a new relationship.

Relationship beginnings and failures are not new topics for Costello any more than for any other songwriter, but it is the personal tinge to these songs that brings validity to the ceaselessly glum mood. Though there is some happiness as the album winds down, it does not fit the pop-song format in which all that came before is joyfully forgotten. The end of a relationship leaves scars, and Costello does not shy from turning his patented vibrato to the description of these scars.

Several years ago, Costello toured with pianist Steve Nieve, his long-time collaborator both in and out of Elvis’ backing band the Attractions. On that tour, they stripped down songs from throughout their history to very simple arrangements. Such a spirit is the backbone of North, with Nieve providing the bulk of the piano backdrop. Costello has added a good deal of almost-schmaltzy orchestration, which suits the songs’ torchsong mood.

It is a well-made record, and its emotional content is honest and mature. Complex feelings — too often expressed simply by lesser songwriters — are given proper attention by the Semi-Bitter Old Man. North is too subdued to be revolutionary, but it is bold in its Gershwin-esque sincerity.

Grade: A/B