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Believe it or not, Costello's inching up on a 20-year career now, so this return to form is more remarkable than you might think. Not many artists ever come to the realization that their first few albums held all the elements of their public appeal, but even those who do find it hard to recapture their original form once they've strayed as far away from it as Costello has.
His last supposed "rock" album, Mighty Like a Rose, was a dreadful collection of bad ideas badly executed, and then be followed it with The Juliet Letters, a hopelessly flawed concept album featuring the most accomplished New Wave rocker of the '70s warbling with a string quartet. It looked like whatever talent he had left was destined to be squandered on ever-weirder stuff until no one cared anymore.
Brutal Youth may be no This Year's Model, but you'll be just as happy to bear it as most of his other earlier pop albums. The reason is obvious. Pop/rock is the only idiom he thoroughly understands. He has reunited with the Attractions and Nick Lowe; drummer Brute Thomas, in particular, seems to give him the boot in the butt he's been needing for years.
Each of these songs sounds like a study of a particular Top 40 hit from the '60s, but you can't quite put your finger on which one. That — along with his smart lyrics — is Costello's talent in a nutshell, and it's on full display here. Again.
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