In between two European shows in mid-April and the start of his U.S. tour, Costello’s 17th studio album, When I Was Cruel, will be released. The album, which hits shelves April 23, is Costello’s first record of new material since All This Useless Beauty came out seven years ago.

Since then, Costello has done three collaboration albums. Burt Bacharach and Costello joined up for 1998’s Painted From Memory. Then guitarist Bill Frisell and Costello teamed up in 1999 for a record revisiting the best of Bacharach and Costello tunes. In 2001, Costello and classical singer Anne Sofie von Otter made an unlikely but very Costello-esque pair with the collaboration For The Stars.

Aside from a few one-off gigs around the globe, Costello has been largely absent from the road since his 1999 North American tour.