A small outburst of tie-loosening sounds scurry across the opening seconds of "Walk Us Uptown", the first song on Elvis Costello and the Roots' Wise Up Ghost: We hear a few warm-up blurts, studio cross-chatter, and someone bringing up the volume on a laptop. When artists with historical baggage collaborate, sometimes these little expectation-defusing gestures pop up, a way to subtly prod reverent audiences into listening with new ears. Bear with us, we're just putting this together on the fly, they say.
For Wise Up Ghost, it's a bit of a feint. Elvis Costello and the Roots are known for many things, but neither are noted for "relaxing." And Wise Up Ghost, the more you poke at it, turns out to be one of the densely referential works in Costello's catalogue, its lyrics a series of nested self-quotes that build a Chinese box out of his old records. The grooves, from the Roots, are loose, muted, and murky, but the music glows with the unmistakable attention to detail and sense of history that the group can't help but bring to everything they touch. This isn't the sound of old masters getting loose, in other words, as much as lifelong A-students coasting a bit.
Although the name on the sleeve is "Elvis Costello and The Roots", Blackthought doesn't show up to rap, even on the lean, snapping "Come the Meantimes". No one raps at any point, in fact, which seems like a missed opportunity to make something unusual happen. The only real link to hip-hop comes from Costello's reflexive, self-quoting urge: "Wake Me Up" and "(She Might Be A) Grenade" both reset lyrics from his 2004 album The Delivery Man, while echoes of Punch the Clock's "Pills & Soap" flicker across "Stick Out Your Tongue". On the title track, Costello's backup vocals call back to the earlier track "Grenade", effectively creating an Escher staircase of himself. For Costello diehards, the multiple callbacks trigger the same "wait, how many places do I know this lyric from?" half-déjà vu that has always been one of hip-hop's deepest pleasures.
At the record's low points, though, the "legends spitballing" vibe works against the material. Some of the songs are undercooked, or at least they begin to feel that way as the grooves stretch out past five minutes. "Stick Out Your Tongue", "Come the Meantimes", and "Wake Me Up" linger longer than their thematic materials deserve, and "Can You Hear Me" meanders through six minutes but feels nearly twice that length, a collection of slapdash ideas with no audible commitment behind them.
At their best, both artists are great listeners, capable of soaking up something they can use from new collaborators. On the slower, quieter tracks, you can hear Wise Up Ghost shade into something that sounds genuinely like a product of both sensibilities: "Tripwire" is a delicate 6/8 shuffle that Costello sings in his lovely high head voice, the only time his voice sounds conventionally beautiful. "If I Could Believe" is one of those stunning, rafter-reaching ballads Costello unfurls out of his dry, unsentimental soul every few albums, to remind us he can. On the left-field "Cinco Minutos Con Vos", a series of disparate parts click together: Questlove's patient, freakishly exact snare snaps, horns punch soft notes, strings churn, Costello trades vocals with La Marisoul of La Santa Cecilia, and boom-- Elvis Costello and the Roots. It's not the kind of moment that will knock the long-since-formed careers of either out their deep, geologic grooves, but it's a minor revelation nonetheless.
