NEW ALBUM: Elvis Costello "hey clockface"

[CRAZY-HORSE]

Spotify:

his thirty-first studio album.
album opens up with violins and in comes some middle easten instruments which then goes into a spoken word piece, and that was just the first track.
after that we see Costello as the 'angry young man' he was in '78 as he hits his New Wave/Punk roots for a track.
some ballads follow, something that sounds like Bacharach, a Vaudevillian tune, entering jazz territory on a couple of tunes...
WTF, he goes all avant-garde with another spoken piece

overall,
some beautiful moments as one would expect from Mr McManus
some probably wouldnt make the grade for me and a couple of arty-farty self indulgent, pompus spoken word pieces that did nothing for me at all.
will have to think long and hard as to whether i purchase this one because his last couple, even though they are okay, just havent really been what they should have been

favourite:

[CRAZY-HORSE]

album debuts at #39 in the UK
thats probably average for one of his albums.

its his thirteenth studio album since 2000
and in that time only two albums have hit the top20 in his homeland
im not saying theyre bad albums, far from it for the most part, he's a class act IMO.

but ive decided not to purchase this one because as previously posted his last couple really werent great and i cant decide whether i like this one or not...bye bye Declan McManus youve served my music ears well over the decades but ive got to let you go