In a certain light he looked liked Elvis,In a certain way he feels like Jesus...

I’m not going to go on and on about how this album was made and how it was originally going to be a concept album and about how it is Elvis Costello’s take on southern soul. You can read that stuff somewhere else and if I included it here it would just take away from the fact that I have really loved this album. I am continually amazed at how great a song writer Costello is and this album is further proof. The Imposters do a great job punching Costello’s southern gothic tales with the appropriate mix of different southern musical genres. Also, Emmylou Harris (Christ, she’s everywhere!) and Lucinda Williams play some pivotal female characters in Costello’s twisted story with their guest vocals.

Even though Costello has said that the original idea for a concept album was scrapped, it’s still fun to try to piece together a narrative that would connect these 13 songs. Oh, sure it may be futile, but the best art will keep you thinking about it long after the initial experience is over in an effort to find even more layers of enjoyment. It’s still very early in the life of The Delivery Man for hyperbolic comparisons, but for me the words and the music carry the same feel of a Flannery O’Connor story. There’s no mention of a peacock but it is dark, there’s a humor about it, there’s religion, there’s false religion, there’s grotesque characters, there’s violence, etc. The song titles even sound like they could be O’Connor short stories and once you make the O’Connor connection it’s hard not to think of this delivery man as kin to the Bible salesman in O'Connor's “Good Country People”.

I have one minor qualm with The Delivery Man. The very last song, "The Scarlet Tide", seems tacked on to me. Having already heard it sung by Alison Krauss on the Cold Mountain soundtrack, hearing it from Elvis is a bit of a let down. It’s his song so I don’t blame him for wanting to do it and include it here, but I think he would have done better using it as a B-side or just letting Rhino use it on their eventual two-disc version of The Delivery Man which should be due around 2019. The Delivery Man is a very strong album and one of Costello’s best. I highly recommend it.