Elvis Costello, When I Was Cruel

The folks at Island Records assured us we’d be on the guest list for last month’s Ryan Adams show at the Orpheum. We weren’t. Bent on revenge (we paid for parking and everything!), we threw a dart at the label’s spring release calendar and vowed to publish a ruthless slag of whichever forthcoming album met its menacing steel tip. Lucky for them, the would-be victim turned out to be Elvis Costello, who’s way too cool to be swept up in our petty little grudges. In his own words, Elvis’ When I Was Cruel is “a rowdy rhythm record,” marking a full recovery from his recent bout of balladeering alongside the likes of Burt Bacharach and Anne Sofie von Otter. Good timing, El—that whole retro-lounge thing was, like, so 90s. Distorted guitars abound on the new album, as do the tactile and literate phrasings that earned Britain’s most fiercely human rock star his rep. He doesn’t get name-checked as often as Nick Drake these days, but Costello’s influence is manifest; post-post-punk comers from Ben Folds to Phantom Planet owe him big, and Rhino’s recent reissue of This Year’s Model is just one piece of material evidence. It’s about time a four-eyed 40-something other than Spike Lee got us pumped up for summer.