[15] About half the album features a band consisting of Costello (guitar), Steve Nieve (keyboards) and Pete Thomas (drums) with Nick Lowe (not a member of the Attractions) on bass.

Upon arriving at Olympic, Costello recruited another ex-Attraction, keyboardist Steve Nieve, as well as former producer Nick Lowe on bass guitar.

Though this arrangement, informally nicknamed "the Distractions",[18] performed on a significant portion of the album, Lowe bowed out on tracks that he felt required a more melodic and complex style of playing than he could provide.

But once we met up at a party at Pete Thomas's, we got along fine, and it seemed a natural thing to use him.Nick has this great pretence that he can't play anything with more than five chords in it.

Some songs suited Nick, some Bruce, and in between I ended up playing bass on "Kinder Murder," and the bridge of "Just About Glad," just because the amateur approach seemed to be appropriate.

"[19] Trouser Press wrote: "Throughout, deft instrumental touches, superb singing and the easy confidence of a still-competitive athlete returning to the scene of his greatest triumph make this another effortless win.