The Phoenix Network:
 
 
About  |  Advertise
Adult  |  Moonsigns  |  Band Guide  |  Blogs  |  In Pictures
 
CD Reviews  |  Classical  |  Live Reviews  |  Music Features
Best-2010-extended-voting

Elvis Costello and the Imposters

Momofuku | Lost Highway
By ZETH LUNDY  |  May 12, 2008
2.5 2.5 Stars
05/16/2008_Costello_insideElvis Costello’s transition from angry young man to grumpy old man was nearly complete late last year when, in reaction to the piecemeal experience of the digital age, he entertained the notion of never ever recording another album. Then he decided that he would record another album, but that it would be released on vinyl only. Such extremism is quaint but impractical, and so Momofuku — recorded off-the-cuff during one week in LA with the Imposters and Rilo Kiley’s Jenny Lewis, Johnathan Rice, and pedal-steel player “Farmer” Dave Scher on backing vocals — is now available in all formats. That’s just as well, because its lasting gimmick is its rock-and-roll spontaneity, not its method of delivery. Sure, Costello’s flubbed lines are left intact and the album’s mixes can be wildly uneven, but missed perfections make for a pretty riveting whole. The simplest songs (“Go Away,” “Drum & Bone”) fare best in the unstructured environment; pastiches of bossa nova (“Harry Worth”) and cabaret (“Mr. Feathers”) offset the barrage of roots-tinged rock. As far as raw rock goes, Costello splits the difference: “American Gangster Time” suffers from an absence of melody but “Stella Hurt” wraps its hook in a wicked bootstomp riff. “I’m a limited primitive kind of man,” Costello sings in “Drum & Bone,” and for better and worse, that’s the truth.
Related: Elvis Costello | Secret, Profane and Sugarcane, Straight Man Versus Jokerman, Elvis Costello and Allen Toussaint, More more >
  Topics: CD Reviews , Rilo Kiley, Elvis Costello, Elvis Costello,  More more >
  • Share:
  • Share this entry with Facebook
  • Share this entry with Digg
  • Share this entry with Delicious
  • RSS feed
  • Email this article to a friend
  • Print this article
HTML Prohibited
Add Comment

[ 03/14 ]   Kammerwerke  @ Eliot Church
[ 03/14 ]   Keith Rowe + Jason Lescalleet  @ Mills Gallery
[ 03/14 ]   Wellesley Chamber Music Society  @ Jewett Auditorium
[ 03/14 ]   Thomas Van Dyck  @ Longy School of Music
ARTICLES BY ZETH LUNDY
Share this entry with Delicious
  •   BROKEN BELLS | BROKEN BELLS  |  March 09, 2010
    Danger Mouse ( né Brian Burton) had a pretty good run through the '00s, a decade that saw him go from a mash-up nobody to producer du jour for a motley assortment of artists.
  •   JIMI HENDRIX | VALLEYS OF NEPTUNE  |  March 03, 2010
    The Imaginary Hendrix Vault boasts so many hypothetical treasures.
  •   FIELD MUSIC | FIELD MUSIC (MEASURE)  |  February 16, 2010
    It takes some serious balls to release a double album in an age when Peter Gabriel would rather go bald than wear a fox pelt on his head.
  •   FELA KUTI | THE ’69 L.A. SESSIONS  |  February 09, 2010
    Amiri Baraka put it best in his poem "In the Funk World": "If Elvis Presley is King/Who is James Brown, God?" So, by that logic, is Fela Anikulapo Kuti higher than or equal to God?
  •   BASIA BULAT | HEART OF MY OWN  |  January 27, 2010
    Like a Laurel Canyon Billie Holiday or a pixilated Tracy Chapman, Bulat sports a voice rich with vibrato, hearty oomph, and dignified lonesomeness.

 See all articles by: ZETH LUNDY

MOST POPULAR
RSS Feed of for the most popular articles
 Most Viewed   Most Emailed 



  |  Sign In  |  Register
 
thePhoenix.com:
Phoenix Media/Communications Group:
TODAY'S FEATURED ADVERTISERS
Copyright © 2010 The Phoenix Media/Communications Group