The Delivery Man
Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Elvis Costello's 21st studio album, The Delivery Man, was intended as a
song cycle or a concept album, not that you could ever tell from listening
to album. During the prerelease promotion for the album, Costello claimed
that he had written a narrative concerning a delivery man in the American
South, following him on his journeys and through his relationships with
three women of different ages and backgrounds. He also said that he deliberately
presented the songs on the album out of narrative order, even taking songs
off the record if they revealed too much about either the character or the
story. All of this pretty much means that The Delivery Man lacks even a
semblance of a narrative, and the only way to know that it's supposed to
have one was to read prerelease press or reviews. In other words, the record
wound up not as a concept album but as a conceptual album, one that is inspired
by the South, in both its music and its imagery, so it's fitting that it's
released on the Americana label Lost Highway in Costello's ongoing quest
to release an album on every one of Universal's various imprints. While
the narrative may have been thrown out the window, that doesn't mean it
wasn't needed, since the fledgling concept helped focus Costello even if
he didn't follow it through to a complete conclusion. The story of The Delivery
Man may have faded away, but working within its framework has inspired Costello
to craft his most consistent, unified rock & roll album in many, many
years. It's also his best rock record in a long, long time, one that pulls
off the nifty trick of being looser, harder than When I Was Cruel while
being as sophisticated as North. Make no mistake, this is a composer's record,
written with an assured, knowing hand and a deliberate sophistication; it's
hard to hear "Country Darkness" without envisioning the written
score that gives the tune its gentle lilt. Instead of being an Achilles'
heel, this bent toward serious, structured composition is a benefit, revitalizing
Costello's writing. On Cruel he sounded labored, as if writing a rock album
was a chore, but here he's threaded different musical strands — chiefly
country, blues, and soul, but also how he wrote in his '80s heyday; witness
how "Either Side of the Same Town" and "Bedlam" are
close cousins to Trust — into a style of writing that's more akin
with North than any previous rock record. Here, there's an economy to his
words and a directness in the basic melodic structure that gives the songs
a strong backbone, and help ground his winding eclecticism, which he nevertheless
keeps in check by concentrating primarily on Southern musical traditions.
But what really makes The Delivery Man work is that it just plain sounds
good. It's the first album that he's recorded in its entirety with his road
band the Imposters, and they give this music serious muscle, but it also
helps that the production by Costello and Dennis Herring stays out of the
way — it's simple, direct, and unadorned, letting the performances
shine through. The Delivery Man isn't perfect — "The Scarlet
Tide" is as mannered here as it was on the Cold Mountain soundtrack,
while the very good "There's a Story in Your Voice" is nearly
derailed by an unhinged Lucinda Williams — and it never feels as urgent
as his prime work, but it's at once his most accomplished and visceral record
as a veteran rocker, which is welcome indeed.
4 out of 5 stars