Elvis Costello

Back in rootsy Americana mode with T-Bone Burnett, Elvis Costello cut this album over a few days in Nashville. Emmylou Harris shows up to duet on "The Crooked Line," and beauties like "I Felt the Chill," "How Deep Is the Red" and "I Dreamed of My Old Lover" sound as if they were plucked from the ether, not crafted from Costello's sweat and toil. Ostensibly an album about Hans Christian Andersen's tortured love for famed soprano Jenny Lind, this plays like a cozy evening creating music with old friends.

What is is this time? Schubert lieder? Balkan fusion? Elvis Costello's genre-hopping can be
exhilarating and, often, exhausting. But here he's in one of his comfort zones, rootsy
Americana, reunited with T Bone Burnett, who produced the similarly flavored 1986 ringer
King of America. Recorded in Nashville in three days, it's tight and uncluttered, with fiddle
and dobro accenting jaunty bluegrass-folk corkers such as "Hidden Shame." The... More >