Originally Posted by Bulldog Just so you all know, the review of the new album's going up tonight, if not tomorrow.

Secret, Profane and Sugarcane
2009, Hear Music Records, Sound Emporium (Nashville TN)

1. Down Among The Wines And Spirits
2. Complicated Shadows
3. I Felt The Chill Before The Winter Came [Costello/Lynn]
4. My All Time Doll
5. Hidden Shame
6. She Handed Me A Mirror
7. I Dreamed Of My Old Lover
8. How Deep Is The Red?
9. She Was No Good
10. Sulphur To Sugarcane [Costello/Burnett]
11. Red Cotton
12. The Crooked Line [Costello/Burnett]
13. Changing Partners [Coleman, Darion]
*14. Femme Fatale [Reed]
*15. What Lewis Did Last [Costello/trad]
*16. Dirty Rotten Shame

* = Bonus tracks

Since his collaboration with Allen Toussaint, Elvis Costello had found himself a regular performer at San Francisco's annual Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival, which would naturally lead to interesting, paired-down re-arrangements of his old songs. Playing for a bluegrass audience would, naturally, lead to his writing a bunch of intimate, easily-adaptable songs which could be played by a bluegrass band. Several of these new songs were unveiled as he filled in his support slot for Bob Dylan's tour of the US in 2007, which saw a lot of acclaim go his way. These were a selection of the songs Costello took into the studio to be recorded in a whirlwind 3-day session earlier this year. Others were covers as well as several songs Costello had written but not opted to record just yet (like his second co-write with Loretta Lynn), re-workings of old songs (Hidden Shame[ and Complicated Shadows were written for Johnny Cash and recorded with the Attractions during the All This Useless Beauty sessions some 13 years ago), while a couple of co-writes with his old buddy T-Bone Burnett popped up (who he hadn't worked with for some 25 years).

Seeing as T-Bone Burnett hadn't sat in the producer's chair for Costello since his bluegrass/folk-tinged album of 1986 (the excellent King Of America), it'd be safe to assume the results the pair perceived before entering the Sound Emporium in Nashville Tennessee would have leaned in that sort of direction. In fact, Secret Profane and Sugarcane goes several steps further than King Of America by going into full-blown bluegrass territory. In order to get this kind of vibe going, the electric instruments which made up last year's Momofuku were completely dispensed with in favour of an unplugged, acoustic band. Dubbed the Sugarcanes, Costello's new band consisted of the man himself wielding that acoustic guitar of his, Jerry Douglas on the dobro (bluegrass's answer to the lap steel guitar), Stuart Duncan playing the fiddle, Mike Compton playing the mandolin, Jeff Taylor with his accordion and Dennis Crouch twanging his double bass. The chemistry between Costello, Burnett and these very highly-regarded musicians in country and bluegrass circles was quite something, as in the space of just 3 days the above 16 songs were recorded.

And convincingly so. This album is a completely different bowl of trifle to Momofuku, if not just about every Elvis Costello album before it, and the results are all the better for it. Like Momofuku before it, it is simply the sound of Costello and company making the music they love, but given that this actually challenges fanboys like me and doesn't come across as a bit meh like the aforementioned, it instantly earns a place in my good books. Overall the album is a sort of mid-tempo, laid-back affair, and has such an easygoing atmosphere about it. The colours added to the sonic soundscapes by such exotic (to English ears such as mine anyway) instruments like the mandolin, dobro and the fiddle are very bright, and work very well indeed in tandem with Costello's yarn-spinning lyrics and decent melodies.

There's not a bad song in sight, although a few do veer towards average territory (Red Cotton for instance, which boasts an unusually preachy and corny lyric) but, unlike the album before it, some of these songs are among Costello's best - All Time Doll is a gloriously catchy, bluesy kind of song with a great melody, while I Dreamed Of My Old Lover and the Crooked Line are already a couple of my favourite songs. As I said, it challenges fans like me by giving them something totally new, unlike the average Momofuku. That and the fact that for the shortness of the recording sessions there are a lot of very well-written and performed songs makes Secret Profane and Sugarcane that much more memorable, and in that sense is just what I wanted from the man as a new album.

As a unit though, it's not quite up there with the man's best, but it's certainly nowhere near mediocre. I'd say the following rating is pretty fair;

7.5/10