Blood & Chocolate

Following 1985's KING OF AMERICA, Elvis Costello temporarily reunited with the Attractions and producer Nick Lowe for one last album before their final split. (Though two albums were released with the Attractions in the 1990s, bassist Bruce Thomas--then on the outs with his bandmates due to a dishy tell-all roman à clef novel he'd written in the interim--had a significantly reduced role in those.) It's quite a farewell: BLOOD AND CHOCOLATE may stand as the hardest rocking and most lyrically vituperative album in Costello's oeuvre, even more so than early scorchers like THIS YEAR'S MODEL. Even the ballads, like the stark, ominous "I Want You" and the dizzying "Poor Napoleon," fairly seethe with venomous malice, and rockers like the throbbing opener "Uncomplicated" and the simply brutal kiss-off "I Hope You're Happy Now" are Costello at his most savage.