Elvis Costello Hey Clockface 2LP

TAS Rated 4.5/5 Music, 4.5/5 Sonics in the February 2021 Issue of The Absolute Sound!

Recorded in Helsinki, Paris and New York, Hey Clockface is the latest Elvis Costello & Sebastian Krys Production, following their collaboration on Elvis Costello and The Imposters' GRAMMY-winning album Look Now. Hey Clockface also features contributions from Bill Frisell, Nels Cline and Steve Nieve.

"I wanted the record to be vivid, whether the songs demanded playing that was loud and jagged or intimate and beautiful," Costello said of the project's emotional and dynamic range.

Alternating between loud, sumptuously produced rock and softer, Tin Pan Alley-inspired songs, the British singer-songwriter delivers a brooding set of songs about time's ceaseless march.

A restless, adventurous album where Elvis Costello puts a new spin on old tricks.

The intimate yet open aural palette painted by Costello and co-producer Sebastian Krys, threaded across three intercontinental studio locales, puts the listener right in the room alongside the musicians with an estimable level of drum, percussion, and horn-section detail. The declarative sneer of 'No Flag' ripples with spooky Fender Jazz basslines, snarly Fender Jazzmaster guitar tones, and swirling Hammond organ lines, all courtesy Costello's own hands. The foreboding 'Newspaper Pane' is a picture-perfect audio snapshot of observational despair, while 'Radio Is Everything' is a spoken-word relief map for its cynical, world-weary narrator. Once again, Elvis Costello shows there's a time and a face for exploring everything his fertile creative mind conjures.