Whatever the time, it’s usually later than you’d like. The clock face’s implacable march is one of the themes of this periodically brilliant, if scattershot Elvis Costello album, one recorded in Helsinki, Paris and New York as coronavirus hit.
Costello came to prominence mere moments after punk, and although his output since has spanned a kaleidoscope of moods, hard-hitting bile remains one of his greatest default modes. No Flag is this album’s crowning glory, a farewell to love whose overdriven churn mirrors Costello’s eloquent anomie. By contrast, the title track is an old-time jazzy flail that quotes Fats Waller and again blames romantic disappointment on a perfidious timepiece.
The remainder of the restless tracklist zigs and zags, as Costello maxes out approaches, musicians and hobbyhorses; his lifelong disgust at militarism remains one subplot. Of two over-egged spoken word tracks, the dramatic, Arabic-leaning Revolution #49 is a keeper. So are the more emotionally skewering songs, They’re Not Laughing at Me Now and What Is It That I Need That I Don’t Already Have – subtle miniatures that reaffirm Costello as one of the masters of his craft.
