Sulky Girl

Elvis Costello: “Sulky Girl” (Warner Bros)

What else can one do after The Juliet Letters except return to basics and on ‘Sulky Girl’, like some historical revisionist reappraising his own back catalogue, Elvis does precisely that by reuniting unexpectedly with the Attractions, revamping their typically abrasive and claustrophobic sound and soldering the whole lot to a thoroughly modern 1990’s sensibility. All the word play of Armed Forces is present but so too, in an uncanny and rather frightening manner, is that unmistakable sound of the cascading keyboards of ‘Oliver’s Army’ as Costello twists and shouts from manic to mellow for a tale of a profligate womanhood battling with small town mores. So indispensable that it had to be a third single of the fortnight.