MOG

Elvis Costello & The Imposters - Momofuku
(Lost Highway, 2008)
6.5 out of 10

By the chorus of "Turpentine," the third song on Momofuku, I was grinning and actually laughing to myself. Ten minutes into the new Elvis Costello record with his Imposters, it seemed, for some reason, as if he hadn't had this much fun making a rock album in his life. Or maybe — I'd bet on this — I just hadn't had this much fun listening to one this year. Summery harmonies (led by Jenny Lewis, former child-star) crown Costello's still unweathered voice; the tunes are exuberant, expert, and easy; exceptional opener "No Hiding Place" even makes an ending move out of the late-'70s Fleetwood Mac playbook.

These opening three numbers (or side A of the four-sided vinyl release, now two weeks old on the occasion of the CD issue) are the best of what Momofuku has to offer. Since there's nothing even close to unlistenable present here, and the tone remains playful throughout, it could be quite a bit worse. The facts, as I call 'em, cast Momofuku in the role of Costello's weakest pop effort in two decades, but he'll have to slip more than this to deserve a serious judgment. For the most part, Momofuku is no less than a pleasure.

Okay, maybe it's showing: Elvis Costello is one of my favorite singer/songwriters. He's blessed with a remarkable consistency of quality when leading a rhythm combo with his original material. At times, Get Happy!! and Trust have each sat in the #3 slot of "all-time favorites." When I Was Cruel was a post-2000 benchmark, a stellar set, especially for a man who'd been at his craft for a quarter-century; in fact, Costello's hardly ever put out any subpar pop records, and the last one was Spike in 1989, which happens to have about an album's worth of good songs on it. In the '90s, he slowed down the pop output considerably in favor of various collaborations and non-pop dalliances with arguable quality ratings; perhaps that's the magic trick.

Momofuku is Costello's solo-McCartney record, a breezy catalogue of the sounds that have made him who he is, albeit with a bit more noise and higher standards than Paul tends to display. "Mr. Feathers" is the only song that directly evokes Mr. McCartney, the kind of piano-based moment that people throw the words "cabaret" and "parlor" at, when they likely mean Beatles and Harry Nilsson; though "Harry Worth" takes a sideways hit at the Latin accents McCartney occasionally works with (and does it better). "Flutter and Wow" is a mid-tempo 6/8 soul burn at the midpoint, to which I'd give higher marks if it weren't for the semi-unwelcome borrowing from the Beach Boys' "In My Room" for the verse's opening motif; luckily, Costello's not normally one to hang a song on a fragment, and it goes very nice places, the best places since the opening trio, in fact.

The penultimate "Pardon Me Madam, My Name Is Eve" sinks the album below "pleasure" for four minutes with an unfortunate excursion into Bible imagery and a dirgey country tune without any country signifiers in the arrangement. Thankfully, "Go Away" swoops in at the close to re-elevate the mood with a classic Attractions-style (if slower) garage-rock track and Jenny Lewis duetting on the choruses. And though Momofuku stands lacking the mood dynamics of some of his better albums or the blatant consistency of others, it will nonetheless bring a hardcore like me, and likely even casual fans, back to the beginning at least several more times before the newness wears off and a few favorite songs stick.

-Spencer Owen