Elvis Costello transitions through musical genres as well as David Bowie or Prince, and Secret, Profane & Sugarcane continues this trend, sounding little like his previous album Momofuku – T Bone Burnett’s production shines throughout the stripped down and countrified disc, and while it never gets tedious it can get tiring…there are a lot of fun and catchy tracks like “Down Among the Wines and Spirits”, “Complicated Shadows”, and “Hidden Shame” (originally written for Johnny Cash), but clunkers like “I Felt the Chill Before the Winter Came”, “She Handed Me A Mirror” bog things down needlessly – Secret could have proven to people who don’t usually listen to bluegrass/country that it’s not all bad, but unfortunately it falls into some of the trappings that make people that otherwise love Costello’s other more eccentric work loathe country music.

Rating: 6.3 / 10

June 9, 2009
Hear Music