One way or another, "Button My Lip" kicks my ass. The guitar runs such raw yet smooth rhythms as to be insidiously compelling already. Yet this rawness still comes out like chamber music, in the Walter Rimler usage.

That is, it's a carefully arranged orchestral piece, in which each instrument has a uniquely developed and important voice. This comes from making his album with the Imposters, aka the Attractions with a new bass player who would just about make you forget the old one. This album certainly gains from the strong overall feeling of a working band involved.

There's nobody just playing scales here, least of all the diabolical Steve Nieve. He just gets better with time. The discordant yet somehow perfectly beautiful chords he's pounding out make the completing part of the "Button My Lip" song.

"Bedlam" also features a really compelling stew of classic stuttering raw rock groovliciousness. The underlying vocal melody seems pretty good, though perhaps less than the very best of his career. He sure makes the most of it, though, again with every single instrument really adding something compelling to the whole statement. It's a pretty impressive sonic experience.

Elvis played "Monkey to Man" a few nights ago on Letterman, causing Dave to explain that Elvis was "single handedly saving rock and roll." Gee, I don't know if it rates quite THAT high, but it is pretty good.

This song is something of a vicious evil twin of the Kinks' classic "Apeman." Elvis gives us a communique from the apes, delivering one of his most classic misanthropic rants in a deliriously happy rockin' pop song:

Big and useless as he has become
With his crying statues and his flying bomb
Goes 'round acting like the chosen one
Excuse us if we treat him like our idiot cousin...
It's been headed this way since the world began
When a vicious creature took the jump from Monkey to Man

Then there's the title song. "The Delivery Man" sounds like it might have fit somewhere in the middle of King of America. That's a good thing. Again, it's a pretty good, slow ominously swinging song, but he's really made a heller record out of the pretty good basic composition. The arrangement is at least as compelling as the song.

That's definitely at least a half dozen outstanding songs right there, but even most of the others have some things going on. I could well imagine "Either Side of the Same Town" or the viciously compelling "Needle Time" emerging as favorites a month or two out.

Yeah, this album will be yielding it's charms more fully with time.