Nick Lowe's late career has been built on subtraction. Long after the frantic pub rock and power pop that made his reputation, he found a second language in smaller arrangements, softer singing and songs whose craft no longer needs to advertise itself. Love Starvation / Trombone continues that evolution with Los Straitjackets as his backing band.
The masked surf-rock group might suggest a certain theatricality, but the four songs are remarkably unforced. They draw from the uncluttered swing of late-fifties and early-sixties pop, country and rhythm & blues, leaving Lowe's voice and melodies exposed. The arrangements are concise enough that every guitar figure or horn entrance has a specific role.
"Love Starvation" is the closest the EP comes to the energy of Lowe's seventies work, a Brinsley Schwarz-style rocker played with considerably more restraint than he might once have allowed. "Blue on Blue" is a gentle, twanging ballad, while "Trombone" moves into dry lounge music, its horn arrangement giving the song a slightly crooked sophistication. It is the strongest of the new compositions.
The closing "Raincoat in the River," associated with Ricky Nelson, fits so naturally into this setting that it hardly registers as a stylistic detour. Lowe and Los Straitjackets understand the period vocabulary well enough to avoid turning it into costume music.
At seventy, Lowe no longer has much use for the old "Jesus of Cool" pose. The wit remains, but the music has become more patient and exact. Love Starvation / Trombone lasts only four songs, and there is nothing on it that needs to last any longer.
GENRE: Pop/Rock
RELEASE DATE: May 17, 2019
PRODUCED BY: Nick Lowe
LABEL: Yep Roc Records
RATING: 7/10