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.