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In the last few years Costello's bopped back and forth from country (Almost Blue) to his trademark manic-yet-literate Attractions pop (Imperial Bedroom, Blood & Chocolate). On his debut Warner Bros. record we find him Attractions-less, but with an intriguing cast of sidemen: erstwhile Byrd Roger McGuinn, Paul McCartney (with whom Costello has been composing songs), Chrissie Hynde, the Dirty Dozen Brass Band and Allen Toussaint.
Granted, this reviewer is one of the twisted bunch who would pay to watch Costello do just about anything he wanted on a record or stage, but happily this time we don't have to — this record is far from the botch job Goodbye Cruel World was. Released from an angry relationship with his former record company, Costello seems a freer soul here, musically.
Spike comes out of the speakers with a bang from the start with "This Town," an upbeat tune with Roger McGuinn laying a big satiny Rickenbacker 12-string all over the place. To add to the fun, Costello has McCartney playing Rickenbacker bass and he himself wields a Rickenbacker six-string. "Let Him Dangle" recounts a 1952 murder case, topped with a haunting chorus that won't leave you for days; and in "God's Comic" Costello has the Higher Power reclining on a waterbed, reading an airport novel and listening to Andrew Lloyd Webber's Requiem.
Jazz percolates throughout this album and not just from players like Allen Toussaint. On "Chewing Gum" Costello turns a famous jazz riff inside out, and augments the Dirty Dozen Brass Band's jazzy horns with a '70s funk guitar. And "Stalin Malone" is an eerie instrumental that evokes some forgotten British film noir.
Costello's convoluted mind has produced a dense, tightly packed album of music that rewards the listener with each subsequent play. There is an hour's worth of music jammed into this disc, and the compact disc and cassette versions have an extra cut to boot, "Coal-Train Robberies." Because Costello has always had such a vivid ear for a melody, and he's aided in that vein by co-composer McCartney on two of the more accessible cuts here (the wonderful "Pads, Paws and Claws," and "Veronica"), more than a few of these songs beg to be — yes, say it — played on the radio. Everywhere but in radio-blighted Detroit.
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