Irish Examiner review of North
A little late but a second print review of North has appeared in an Irish newspaper. Riddled with factual errors it still makes some interesting points; I hadn`t seen the Oscar Wilde `echo` before .
`In the past ,when Elvis documented the break-up of his previous marriage (Imperial Bedroom , Blood And Chocolate and King Of America) there was an explosion of anger , guilt and revenge.
North , however , doesn`t have a hint of bitterness. In Fallen , Costello tracks his previous self when he sings 'I never did what I was told/ I trampled through the amber and the burnished gold/ But now I see how cruel young can be '.
With echoes of Oscar Wide`s story The Happy Prince in that last couplet what the lack of bile allows Costello to do is move on to an almost embarrassing openness about his new found love. Still and Let Me Tell You About Her are probably the simplest love songs Elvis has ever written. Costello has said he wanted to make a thing of beauty with North. `
The Irish Examiner , Dec. 19 `03 .
Love lost and love regained.
Throughout his career Elvis Costello has
always strayed from rock and roll and wandered off
into other genres.
There was his homage to Motown and stax very
early on on his fourth album Get happy. For Almost
Blue, Elvis went to Nashville. Most recently , of
course, there was his collaboration with Burt
Bacharach on the sublime Painted From Memory.
Add in The Juliet Letters and King Of America
which featured various Pogues , and Spike which
contained lots of jazzy type stuff and a pattern
begins to emerge of constant diversification.
In spite of always being a devoted
musicologist , nevertheless , there are those who just
wish that Elvis would stay within the narrow but
brilliant and claustrophobic sounds he makes with The
Attractions.
Which brings us to Costello`s latest
long-playing release , North. Released on the
predominantly jazz label Deutsch Grammaphon and
categorized within that genre it`s not like Elvis has
gone all John Coltrane or Charlie Parker.
North is a close relation to Painted From
Memory , more Tony Bennett than Sun Ra . Costello
wrote the songs for North pretty quickly while on the
road touring last September 2002. The most noteworthy
background to their genesis in terms of Costello`s
personal life is that they emerge from the collapse of
his 16-year-long marriage to Cait O`Riordan and his
subsequent getting together with Grammy-award winning
jazz chanteuse Diana Krall.
Those used to Elvis`s ironic and cynical word
play and the dense layers of meaning in his songs will
be most shocked by the apparent simplicity and
straight forwardness of the tunes on North. In one
sense , North is like a cycle of love songs that run
from the end of one relationship to the beginning of
another. Most of them feature Elvis on piano in fairly
stripped down arrangements in keeping with the clarity
of the emotions depicted in the tunes.
Hence , the opening track , You Left Me In The
Dark , a sombre Randy Newman-esque number ( musically
speaking), traces the the last loving thing said
between a couple. It`s like a marker for the entire
album.
In the past ,when Elvis documented the break-up
of his previous marriage ( Imperial Bedroom , Blood
And Chocolate and King Of America) there was an
explosion of anger , guilt and revenge.
North , however , doesn`t have a hint of
bitterness. In Fallen , Costello tracks his previous
self when he sings 'I never did what I was told/ I
trampled through the amber and the burnished gold/ But
now I see how cruel young can be '.
With echoes of Oscar Wide`s story The Happy
Prince in that last couplet what the lack of bile
allows Costello to do is move on to an almost
embarrassing openness about his new found love. Still
and Let Me Tell You About Her are probably the
simplest love songs Elvis has ever written. Costello
has said he wanted to make a thing of beauty with
North.
Musically unremarkable , yet sublime in places ,
its openness and integrity is admirable but Costello`s
desire to purge himself of his own scepticism reduces
North too often to an over-simplification of the
complex issues of love lost and love found. All the
same , taken as a series of surface snapshots there
are some extraordinarily touching moments.
Patrick Brennan.