In a state of necessary reinvention, Elvis Costello threw everything he could at just about every genre. His desire to be a jack of all trades and master, also, is admirable. Often, it works. Almost Blue does not work. But it was never meant to be a bold new push from Costello, and is more an offhand and light experiment with a genre that would never be the focus of his work again. It feeds into his best songs, that much is crucial, but a straight rockabilly record from Costello dilutes the charm of his sound. Almost Blue is still an interesting listen despite that problem, The Attractions never quite managing to mount this countrified tone to the punk soul Costello still provides. Songs which would fare better in the style found on Imperial Bedroom just a year later. Songs of longing, fragments of hope and lost love are scattered across Almost Blue and they never have all that great an impact.
Part of the trouble is that Costello is drowned out by the upbeat, swinging style of rockabilly music, but a bigger part is the instrumental misdirection. Steve Nieve hammering away on a piano is usually a cause for celebration but here it sounds out of place. Screaming opener Why Don’t You Love Me (Like You Used to Do)? has potential, but the power of the piece is lost in the instrumental urgency. It’s a minute-and-a-half, though, so not much to moan about. Save those complaints for later songs, the likes of Success and Tonight the Bottle Let Me Down are worthier targets. We must allow artists a chance to reflect on their influences and even replicate the style, but Costello never manages to overhaul the hand-wringing sentimentality which seeps into Sweet Dreams. Never is the question of quality looming when it comes to Costello’s voice, he stands tall as ever. It’s the material that doesn’t do him, or The Attractions for that matter, justice.
Lonely evenings should give us better commentary than this from Costello. It’s the use of tones and instruments which are big winners for Costello’s sound on other albums that are the shortcoming of Almost Blue. That pedal steel guitar, the overreliance on Nieve’s piano, it rips these covers away from the genre a little too harshly, but then it’s up to Costello and The Attractions to make a case for them. That much never happens. Even those songs that make the most of the softer flourishes of the country genre are far from inspired. Brown to Blue is light work, but there’s never the suggestion that Costello can add a new layer to these country classics. Hank Williams, Jerry Chestnut, and Merle Haggard are ran through with all the complacency of a lounge act cover. Far from the highs Costello could offer elsewhere, that’s for sure.
But then is the bar too high for a cover album? It feels like a brief transitional album between Trust and the far more challenging, career-best quality of Imperial Bedroom. There’s no style choice or instrumental overhaul found on Almost Blue that would feature on the follow-up album, so it feels as though Costello simply wanted a break from innovation. Good Year for the Roses is at least a quality moment, the peak of the album and for good reason. Those little intimacies, the details which would be passed on by a less-observant commentator, are the core of that charm. A very light covers album, and it shouldn’t be taken as anything more than that. Even then, the choice of songs, the likes of Honey Hush, do very little for Costello as a vocalist who could stand out with his originals.
