In the liner notes to the remastered version of fifth album Trust, Elvis Costello alludes to it as a synthesis of previous albums Armed Forces and Get Happy!!. Which seems like a logical place to go with Trust. After all, Trust was coming off of a stunning four-album run-- which encompassed albums ranging in quality from "really really good" to "brilliant"-- rivalled only by The Beatles, maybe, or Dylan.

Costello's career flourished so, in part because he had a knick for piecing together a great melody (and a fluid, restless song structure), and in part because in terms of songwriters, he was just THAT GOOD. In terms of mad skills, Costello rocked a mic like no one since Lennon/McCartney and Dylan. He never fell off as a wordsmith, even twentysome years after-the-fact. And his compository skills during that first four-album run were unmatched, reaching their zenith with the not-a-dud-in-the-bunch set recorded for 1980's Get Happy!!. And Costello's regular backing band, the Attractions, were never anything but airtight. They weren't anything flashy, but in terms of rock-solid rhythm, these guys had bark AND bite to spare.

With the quality of Costello's previous work, Trust seems slightly anticlimactic. It's not that there's anything inherently wrong with it-- 'fact, several of the songs here unheralded classics you and your momma can listen to and marvel at-- but when taken as a whole, as an album-- and I DO like it, lest my deflated opinion lead you to believe otherwise-- Trust just isn't up to par. Maybe that smacks of tagging an artist with too-high expectations, but there you have it. But chin up-- on Trust, the band sounds marvelous, maybe the best they have. And Elvis's lyricism is on point. So as a canonical Elvis Costello and the Attractions release, Trust is still the bomb-diggy. It's just, y'know, no Get Happy!!.... unfair, I know.

I'm glad, though, that Trust opens with "Clubland," one of his finest, catchiest numbers, expertly performed (Steve Nieve's piano trills, especially in the bridge) and sung ("in club-laaaaaand!") and double-entendred ("the long arm of the law slides up the outskirts of town.."). "From A Whisper To A Scream" also rocks the hizouse, because it rules and because E.C. duets with that guy from Squeeze (E.C.'s replacement when demo-ing records while E.C. was sauced), and because I love all the vocal embellishments like the "whoa-oh-oh-OH!"s and Glenn's "foooo-oooo-oour" at the end of the second verse. "Luxembourg" is a huge, pounding rocker, and sounds much better here than its humble beginnings as "Seven O'Clock" (from Get Happy!!'s bonus disc). Elsewhere, "Different Finger" and "White Knuckles" are scathing honky-tonk send-ups, "Fish N' Chip Paper" is a clever-sounding jam, and "Big Sister's Clothes" caps the disc off on a low-key (but compelling) note.

All well and good, but Trust's OTHER tunes don't begin to scrape what E.C. is really capable of. "Lovers Walk" is a terribly dull little basher, and "You'll Never Be a Man" just has an ugly melody. "Strict Time" and "Pretty Words" circle their respective melodies without actually pouncing on them. "Watch Your Step" gets points for sounding fairly pretty, but loses them for sounding like the scruffy nephew of Get Happy!!'s "Secondary Modern." Some of these songs are just unpleasant, and leave Trust with a few unsightly dings and scratches unbecoming of the overall veneer it should have. I want my Elvis Costello albums to SPARKLE, doggone it. Fortunately, Costello saves his hide by making almost the entire album imminently quotable-- this guy's way with words is uncanny. On Trust, we get jabs at one night stands ("all I want is one night of glory/ I don't even know your second name"), fickle nature ("you better speak up now, it won't mean a thing later/ yesterday's news is tomorrow's fish n' chip paper"), and all manners of hypocrisy, all tailor-fit to Costello's poetic cynicism.

Trust was recently rereleased in Rhino's continuing upheaval of Costello's discography-- an upheaval which probably is the elusive greatest thing since sliced bread, especially for the super-cheap price-- and sports a full-sized bonus disc of demos and rarities and outtakes and b-sides.... unfortunately, the bonus disc sucks. Hate to be anticlimactic, but there you go. All the demos are poor approximations of their album counterparts (especially "From A Whisper To A Scream," which suffers irreperably without Glenn Tilbrook) and there aren't any great b-sides-- just silly stuff like "Black Sails in the Sunset and other junk nobody cares about. By plumbing the vaults of Costello's repertoire, Rhino's given us some brilliant bonus discs in this series, but Trust's is poorly assembled and contains nothing that bears replaying. So sad.

Many of Trust's songs really are nifty-- unfortunately, when consumed as a whole, it's not as essential as Costello's previous work. Fortunately, Costello's wearing nifty shades on the album cover, so it's not a total loss.

What I mean to say was that about half of these songs are real keepers, so it's not a total loss. Sorry, moment of shallowness.







Recommended: Yes