Elvis Costello & The Imposters - The Boy Named If (2022) [Official Digital Download]

These energetic tracks make it clear that the forced isolation of Covid has inspired Elvis Costello to rediscover the urgency of his style, not to mention his gift for wordplay and melody. As soon as Farewell, OK (which echoes Welcome to the Working Week) has a feisty and very Beatles-like opening, fans of his writing and his performances of yesteryear will be delighted. He's the Costello we remember and want to hear from again. In The Difference where he asks "Do you know what turns pleasure to slight? (Do you know what turns pleasure into suffering?)", a steady rhythm and a touch of Vox organ give birth to the kind of new wave pop melodies in which he excelled forty years ago. Costello's lifelong fascination with roses (see Mighty Like a Rose from 1991) returns here to tell the dreamlike story of a "destitute couple… one of whom has long invited and courted theatrical obscurity only for his violence and cruelty to all become too real. "On a determined beat and with Steve Nieve lying on his organ, Magnificent Hurt resurrects much of Costello's need to testify! And it's impossible to go wrong about the autobiographical side of the title track, a man Costello describes as an "imaginary friend" and an "unpleasant second nature".

The Boy Named If is also one of the few pandemic records that sounds as if it was recorded with a full band in the same room. Three elements unite the songs here: Costello's inhabited vocal takes (he is able to hit all the high notes, with his conspiratorial growl and his growing screams both at the top), the twisted and often opaque rhymes, his great specialty and the incredible drums of Pete Thomas. To repeat the adage, Thomas sounds like "a possessed". Very forward in the mix, its snapping, fast and powerful rhythms - always edged with a hint of punk rock abandon as in The Death of Magic Thinking – are the foundation and the most pronounced musical flavor of the album. There are, of course, less essential moments like Penelope Halfpenny that sound like a not quite finished idea or is perhaps the sonic result of the remote recording process. Another inevitable side effect of this method, the sometimes abrupt endings that stop abruptly or suddenly after a chorus. Slowing down to the end with a pair of ballads, including Mr. Crescent where his voice is stuck to the microphone, The Boy Named If it's Elvis Costello who makes the classic Elvis Costello, the glorious comeback of an eternal talented songwriter.

TRACKLIST

1. Elvis Costello & The Imposters - Farewell, OK
2. Elvis Costello & The Imposters - The Boy Named If
3. Elvis Costello & The Imposters - Penelope Halfpenny
4. Elvis Costello & The Imposters - The Difference
5. Elvis Costello & The Imposters - What If I Can't Give You Anything But Love?
6. Elvis Costello & The Imposters - Paint The Red Rose Blue
7. Elvis Costello & The Imposters - Mistook Me For A Friend
8. Elvis Costello & The Imposters - My Most Beautiful Mistake
9. Elvis Costello & The Imposters - Magnificent Hurt
10. Elvis Costello & The Imposters - The Man You Love To Hate
11. Elvis Costello & The Imposters - The Death Of Magic Thinking
12. Elvis Costello & The Imposters - Trick Out The Truth
13. Elvis Costello & The Imposters - Mr. Crescent



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