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The cover of Elvis Costello's new album, Trust, sports a head and shoulders shot of him, his eyes peering over his tinted glasses as if straining to read a distant wall clock.
It's the same kind of quizzical stare he used time and again on the Tomorrow Show recently when Tom Snyder pursued a line of question worthy of Don Kirshner.
"Do you love your dad?" asked Snyder, obviously a bit cautious with New Wave types since his run-in with John Lydon last summer. "Sure," blurted Costello, who then went on to profess has admiration for Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hart, and Hank Williams as well.
To Snyder's immense relief, Costello's reputation for being remote or belligerent seemed totally unwarranted; on the contrary, he was the perfect guest — sincere, responsive and, in describing his early battles with NBC and a few record executives, quite funny.
But all was not peace, love and understanding. Costello joined the Attractions on an ice-cold version of "Watch Your Step" (shot in black and white, no less) from Trust, and any notion that his new-found composure has dulled his wits vanished as he whispered above Steve Nieve's circling keyboard about: "broken noses hung up on the wall / back slapping drinkers cheering the heavyweight brawl / so punch drunk they don't stand at all / you better watch your step."
The lyrics to "Watch Your Step" survive Nick Lowe's opaque production on Trust better than most. But the tension — physical, sexual and emotional that swells up inside of songs like "White Knuckles ("on black and blue skin")" and "Shot With His Own Gun" ("how does it feel now you've been undressed / by a man with a mind like the gutter press") is unmistakable.
Even Costello's stylistic leaps from the Bo-Diddley-riffed "Lovers Walk" to the countrified crooning of "Different Finger" to the pop romanticism of "Clubland" can't mask his intentions.
On Trust, his obsessions with guilt, anger and loathing ride so close to the surface you don't need a lyric sheet to discover them. Compared with other Lowe productions, Trust also benefits from a cleaner, shallower mix. At least one tune, the rockabilly rave up "Luxembourg," seems as much the product of Lowe's talents as Costello's. Steve Nieve's keyboards trace Costello's witty and sly arrangements faithfully, alluding, as usual, to a variety of themes while navigating the jerky, insistent rhythms laid down by Bruce Thomas and Pete Thomas. Glenn Tilbrook's vocals and Martin Belmont's added guitar give the album a fuller, richer sound than anything Costello has recorded to date. Yet there's an urgent, compelling tone to what Costello has to say that makes you wonder whether he'll ever really grow soft. Trust shows no signs of it.
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