Costello vaults into upper echelons with new album
Dave Marsh / Rolling Stone
If three albums as good as this one are released in 1979, this will rank as one of the vintage years in rock history. Armed Forces takes the qualities that made Costello's first two albums outstanding — the power and precision of his band, the Attractions; his superb songwriting; and incredible emotional force — and enhances them with pop melody and the best production Nick Lowe has ever done. The result is rock that is both vital and visionary, appalled by the horrors of the world but also compassionate, unrelenting but endlessly listenable. Songs like "Oliver's Army," "(What's So Funny About) Peace, Love and Understanding," "Party Girl," "Two Little Hitlers" and "Accidents Will Happen" mark Armed Forces as a breakthrough for the British new wave and elevate Costello into the upper echelons of Seventies rockers.