Blood & Chocolate (With Bonus Disc)

Rhino Records expanded reissue, completely remastered and packaged with a bonus disc of rarities. Bonus disc content -'Leave My Kitten Alone', 'New Rhythm Method, 'Forgive Her Anything' (new version), 'Crimes Of Paris' (electric version), 'Uncomplicated' (alternate version), 'Battered Old Bird' (alternate version), 'Seven Day Weekend' - Elvis Costello with Jimmy Cliff, 'Blue Chair' (single version), 'Baby's Got A Brand New Hairdo', 'American Without Tears No. 2' (twilight version), 'All These Things', 'Pouring Water On A Drowning Man', 'Running Out Of Fools', 'Tell Me Right Now' & 'Lonely Blue Boy'. 2002.

"A pissed-off, 32-year-old divorcé's version of This Year's Model" is what Elvis Costello once called this 1986 noise-pop masterpiece. Following the foray into acoustic roots music that informed the heartbroken King of America, Costello immediately redubbed himself Napoleon Dynamite for songwriting and DIY-cover-painting credits, teamed again with the Attractions and producer Nick Lowe, and headed for the figurative garage. Spattered with bad love and strange dreams, nervy Beatles "tributes" (the deranged "I Want You" held the same end-of-side-1 place on the original LP as John Lennon's namesake ode to Yoko did on Abbey Road), and blurt after blurt of bent tunefulness, Blood & Chocolate was for all that an exceedingly artful, criminally ignored album. "Someday they'll probably make a movie out of all of this," Costello sings on the penultimate "Poor Napoleon." "There won't even have to be a murder, just a slow, dissolving kiss." Rhino's remastered edition adds a disc of bonus tracks, including the fabulous Sir Douglas Quintet homage "Baby's Got a Brand New Hairdo" and five solo acoustic performances of soul and country nuggets that bring the set full circle to King's stylistic core. --Rickey Wright