The Delivery Man soaks up Southern atmosphere like biscuits in gravy
Blender says:
"Elvis Costello never makes things easy for himself, and his latest self-imposed challenge is storytelling that stretches beyond the length of a song.The Delivery Man started out to be an album-length small-town tale of three women seduced by a mysterious delivery man. But partway through, Costello scrambled it, messing with the continuity and interrupting the tale with bulletins from the wider world like "Bedlam," which juggles images of Bethlehem, insane asylums and the chaos of the modern Middle East. Recorded in Mississippi, The Delivery Man soaks up Southern atmosphere like biscuits in gravy. The Impostors, Costello's unstoppable band (with two of his old Attractions and a new bass player) are tighter and meaner now than they were two years ago on When I Was Cruel. They reach for soul and country and pounding rock, pumping up stomps and ballads full of longing and cantankerousness. It's Costello at his most emotionally direct.