★★★★★
Unexpected collaboration and stylistic reversal have become hallmarks for Elvis Costello, but none reaches as far afield as teaming with the Roots. While his early throwbacks to classic R&B; thread the obvious connection, the Roots traffic in more funked-up rhythms, unloaded at the outset with the scratched groove of "Walk Us Uptown." They also push beyond the singer's vocal range, his gritty croon crackling in contrast to the band's tight rhythms...
- www.austinchronicle.com
2013-11-21
★★★★★
Blue Note Records The relatively surprising pairing of Elvis Costello with The Roots developed on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, as The Roots serve as the show's backing band and have been joined by Costello several times, most notably for a mesmerizing, decidedly bare cover of Bruce Springsteen's "Brilliant Disguise...
- www.jambands.com
2013-10-27
★★★★★
EC's metatextual affair with the jazz y neo-hip-hoppers... Elvis Costello has seldom played it safe in his choice of collaborators. From Billy Sherrill to the Brodksy Quartet, Anne Sofie von Otter to Wendy James, Bill Frisell to Burt Bacharach, eclectic and promiscuous just about covers it. His latest unlikely partnership is with The Roots, the jazzy neo-hip-hoppers who moonlight as the house band on NBC's Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, which is where this union first sparked into life...
- www.uncut.co.uk
2013-10-05
★★★★★
Over the course of his thirty-five year career, Elvis Costello has worked with a diverse collection of musicians and producers, from the likes to T-Bone Burnett and Burt Bacharach to Allen Toussaint. Now on his latest album, Wise Up Ghost and Other Songs, he's teamed up with Hip Hop group and stars of late night television (as well as Falls Festival attendees), The Roots...
- www.theaureview.com
2013-10-02
★★★★★
The bargain bins of music history are littered with ill-advised collaborations. All too often a mutual admiration is mistakenly escalated into a joint effort of unlistenable awkwardness, from which neither party emerges unscathed. Occasionally though, the stars (literally) align and something of real value is created. One such example, Wise up Ghost, is the just-released collaboration between hip hop legends, The Roots and the perennial Elvis Costello...
- www.undertheradar.co.nz
2013-10-02
★★★★★
For fans of Elvis Costello, the notion of his pairing with The Roots' Ahmir "?uestlove" Thompson should not be particularly shocking. Costello has made his name with a series of unconventional musical decisions, dating back to the blue-eyed soul of 1980's Get Happy!! and the old time country of 1981's Almost Blue, to his collaborations with Burt Bacharach and Allen Toussaint on 1998's Painted from Memory and 2006's The River In Reverse, respectively...
- www.undertheradarmag.com
2013-10-01
★★★★★
At the risk of giving away too much too soon, there's one thing that listeners need to know going into Wise Up Ghost : This is not an Elvis Costello hip-hop record. Costello has never before put listeners in a position to speculate about his hip-hop credentials, but upon the announcement that the pop music maverick was rubbing shoulders with The Roots , fans and critics jumped to what seemed to be the most logical conclusion.
And, truthfully, the idea wasn't that much of a stretch...
- consequenceofsound.net
2013-09-26
★★★★★
Two magnets of collaboration get their opposites on for 'Wise Up Ghost', perhaps not the most obvious of unisons but certainly an effective one. Leaving the whys and wherefores for messageboard protestors, The Roots mostly sound like the in-house band they've partly become, contractually bound to keep it steady like true slow-handed funk outfits ('Sugar Won't Work')...
- www.clashmusic.com
2013-09-25
★★★★★
One of the founding fathers of new wave punk and a Philadelphia hip-hop band? Dig a little deeper into the respective histories of Elvis Costello and the Roots, though, and you'll understand why this record works. Costello has always dabbled in other genres, and drummer ?uestlove is a music nerd to the core who knows when to rein in his band and when to play to others' strengths...
- nowtoronto.com
2013-09-20
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