Elvis Costello All This Useless Beauty

3 Stars - Good - "...the most likable and organic Costello album in years....these tracks arise as modern standards--the '90s answer to the brilliance of the old Brill Building catalog."
"...possibly the mildest-tempered album he's ever made....Loyalists, however, can rest easy knowing the record's relative quietude camouflages plenty of unladylike phlegm and bile..." - Rating: A-
4 stars out of 5 - "...An uncommonly confessional set by Costello's standards - direct, affecting, and largely overlooked in its day."
4 stars out of 5 - "...Costello unveiled the best singing of his career here, purring and insinuating..."
Recommended - "...It's not useless, just awkward--awkward with the dignity of the auteur....this album draws you into its sullenness, its subtle shades of colour that surround and encompass....when it is simple and graceful--namely in the big ballads--you are lost in a beauty that could crack glass..."
"...sounds surprisingly good....Steve Nieve's piano has as much reverbed twinkle as it did 15 years ago, and it's a very welcome sound....the sort of great pop music Elvis Costello was supposed to be making, if...he'd only been paying attention or something..."
"...a vocal 'tour de force': he has never sounded so intimate, so confiding....[the album] does boast a growing vocal mastery, a newfound sense that Elvis's phrasing is now the equal of his lyrical genius."
7 (out of 10) - "...A strange, slightly confusing, but mostly gripping channel-hopping session through the accumulated tricks of a show-off songcraftsman..."