SINCE HIS ARRIVAL ON THE POST-punk scene 17 years ago, Elvis Costello has shown himself to be one of the most prolific and protean songwriters of his generation. Known for lean, melodious three-minute songs with scathing lyrics about sexual guilt and revenge, he reigned for more than a decade as the acerbic headliner of progressive pop. Then came the '90s. Once a skinny faux nerd, Costello put on weight and grew a beard. His last pop album, 1991's sentimental Mighty like a Rose, was a disappointment. After last year's The Juliet Letters, a sedate song cycle that Costello recorded with the Brodsky Quartet, even devoted fans started wondering if he had lost his stinging touch.
They need not have worried. On the cusp of 40, Costello shakes off the cobwebs with Brutal Youth, a collection of 15 sinewy songs that marks his , reunion with the Attractions, the crack band that backed him on some of his best work of the '70s and '80s. Boisterous and piercing, Brutal Youth moves nimbly from caustic rock to hushed ballads, at times recapturing the brilliance of Costello's best days. "The twitching impulse is to speak your mind," he sneers on All the Rage. "I'll lend you my microscope, and maybe you'll find it." And on 20% Amnesia he lambastes the corrupt calculus of politics, concluding, "You don't have to listen to me/ That's the triumph of free will/ When there are promises to break and dreams to kill."
The rousing Just About Glad is a gem that captures the ambivalence of a man looking back on an affair that was never consummated. "There are a few things that I regret," Costello sings. "But nothing that I need to forget/ And for all the courage that we never had/ I'm just about glad." While Costello can still rave with more venom than many rockers half his age, some of Brutal Youth's finest moments come when he exposes the wounds under his verbal armor.