Rating:
Genre:
Rock
Release Date: 06/02/2009
Elvis Costello has spent the back half of his career flitting from style to style, recording everything from opera to R&B, but he avoided the country-folk of 1986's
King of America until 2009, when he teamed up with
America producer (and fellow
Coward Brother)
T Bone Burnett for
Secret, Profane & Sugarcane. By its very definition, country-folk seems straightforward, but the only thing simple about
Secret is the speed of its recording.
Costello and
Burnett assembled an all-star acoustic string band -- featuring
Jerry Douglas on Dobro,
Dennis Crouch on bass,
Stuart Duncan on fiddle and banjo, and
Jim Lauderdale on vocal harmonies -- and cut the album in just three days, its swiftness similar to its knocked-out predecessor
Momofuku.
Secret, Profane & Sugarcane often bears its quick conception fetchingly, feeling loose-limbed and intimate, a record made simply because it's fun to play, a sentiment that can't quite be said of its songs. Surely, there are times where the humor is as riotous as those old
Coward Brothers singles --
Costello and
Burnett have a ball on the bawdy travelogue
"Sulphur to Sugarcane" and sweetly harmonize with
Emmylou Harris on
"The Crooked Line" -- but
Secret is frequently fussy, particularly on the songs
Costello has carried over from his unfinished
Hans Christian Andersen opera. The very presence of these songs (
"How Deep Is the Red?," "She Was No Good," "She Handed Me a Mirror," "Red Cotton") suggests just how muddled
Secret, Profane & Sugarcane is conceptually: it bounces all over the place, threading these stagebound tunes between a collaboration with
Loretta Lynn and his take on
"Down Among the Wine and Spirits," which he originally wrote for
Ms. Loretta, a rollicking leftover from
The Delivery Man (
"Hidden Shame"), a cover of
Bing Crosby's
"Changing Partners," the
Burnett co-writes, a few new songs, and a reworking of
Elvis' old
"Complicated Shadows." Despite the occasional stuffiness, there's a lot of good material here and it's all executed well, but it's hard not to shake the feeling that this is a collection of leftovers masquerading as a main course.
~Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
;)
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