North is even structured like a concept album in that it chronicles a disintegrating relationship. It begins with the achingly stark "You Left Me in the Dark"--where the strings swell and sigh like a distant storm brewing beneath lines like "Nothing I can do will make you stay/I am glad it will rain today"--and ends with the rumination "I'm in the Mood Again," which one might judge by its title to be an up-tempo swinger, but which is Costello's version of the last-call saloon song "One for My Baby," a tune that evokes a very early New York City morning when our sleepless hero still hasn't shaken the reverie of his heartbreak. Whereas some of Costello's most ambitious works have fallen flat (the awkwardly arty Juliet Letters, the overwrought Mighty Like a Rose), North--splendidly recorded, by the way--is a pleasure because Costello's musical aspirations don't outdistance his singular, affecting emotional directness.