12.21.2020
VARIETY: THE BEST ALBUMS OF 2020
Variety: Jem Aswad: Andrew Baker: Chris Willman: December 2020
8. Elvis Costello — Hey Clockface
Elvis Costello gives the clock a good, solid punch by continuing to release records that put the lie to the idea that veteran artists inevitably stop challenging themselves over time… or that anything in the vicinity of a 31st studio album should have to because for diminished expectations. The different elements of “Hey Clockface” were recorded more or less on the fly, mostly in rushed settings just prior to quarantine, as if Costello looked at his watch and saw it coming. But the looseness and even rawness of the musical settings — some of it done with a jazz-leaning combo in Paris, some with Costello making a joyful, clanging noise by himself as a one-man band in Helsinki — works wonderfully against the often formal elegance of his songwriting.