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Armed Forces, Elvis Costello's latest lp, is as nerve-jangling as an alarm clock going off by mistake at 4 in the morning. It's also a collection of superbly written and performed songs, dealing with themes most songwriters are unwilling or incapable of handling. The message Costello offers is not a pleasant one, even if the music that propels his lyrics is bouncy, almost bubblegummish rock. If you enjoy William S. Burroughs' novels, then Armed Forces is the album for you.
It's significant that Costello once worked as a computer programmer for Elizabeth Arden Cosmetics — this experience probably is the source of his two main song themes: romantic deceit and human mechanization. This is nothing new — Costello's first two albums, My Aim Is True and This Year's Model contained song after song that ripped into the topics of sex, fashion and modern society with bitter sarcasm. Armed Forces escalates the attack — the absurdity of romance and the terrors Of '70s life are focused upon with even greater intensity here. Costello and his band, the Attractions, have never sounded more confident in their music, more certain of its power and importance.
I don't mean by this that Armed Forces isn't entertaining — the Attractions' arrangements recall the best of early psychedelic rock (fun, trashy bands like the Count Five and the Standells particularly), full of nifty musical twists and turns. I especially like keyboardist Steve Naive's work here: he plays his Farfisa organ like the Phantom of the Roller-Rink, lending a sleazy horror movie mood to the album. This is the most elaborately produced of Costello's three lps, yet he is rarely buried in the mix. While still a little too cute and strained in his delivery at times, Costello has clearly grown as a vocalist since his debut album. His singing conveys a manic sort of sincerity, a desire to speak his piece until someone forces him to shut up.
Most of what he has to say is a condemnation of the dehumanizing world around him. In "Busy Bodies" and "Chemistry Class" Costello portrays physical love as an empty act, "automatic":
Sparks are flying from electrical pylons
Snakes and ladders running up and down her nylons
Ready to experiment, you're ready to get burned
If it wasn't for some accidents, then some would never ever learn
The lovers in Costello's songs are selfish and distant, like the woman newscaster who teases him on the television screen in "Green Shirt." Temptation is always beckoning Costello: "I need my head examined / I need my eyes excited / I'd like to join the party / But I was not invited." Mixed-up and full of vengeance, Costello lashes out at everything in sight, including himself.
An even more ominous theme of Armed Forces is mind control, Nazi-like militarism and similar threats to individual freedom. "Goon Squad" compares with Bob Dylan's classic rock protest piece Maggie's Farm" as a broadside against the forces that shape and spiritually kill the young:
Some grow up just like their dads
Some grow up too tall
Some go drinking with the lads
Some don't grow up ;it till
You must find the proper place
For everything you see
But mill never get to make
A lampshade out of me
Originally this album was to he titled Emotional Fascism, and it's easy to see why — human dignity is being threatened in almost every song. Costello suggests that everyone is a potential emotional bully and that relationships are a wrestling match ("Two Little Hitlers will fight it out until / One little Hitler does the other one's will"). If you're looking for tunes about peace and harmony, pass Armed Forces by — this is War on Vinyl.
In the past few years rock critics have been pushing a number of new songwriters on the public as "important" — Bruce Springsteen, Warren Zevon, Garland Jeffreys, etc. Elvis Costello is one of the few that genuinely lives up to the hype he's received. An ingenious and skilled writer, he combines discipline with urgency and wit. Armed Forces is as intelligent and substantial as a work of fiction or a film — as well as being great rock music.
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