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The album is called Armed Forces and it's as brutal and unrelenting as as mercenaries for hire.
It's the new record by Elvis Costello and the Attractions and it's the best rock release since the last album by Elvis Costello and the Attractions.
Just so you know where I stand.
Dayton, and much of the Midwest as well, has managed to remain fairly oblivious to Costello's appeal, preferring to lump him in the punk rock category or file him away with other eccentrics like Leon Redbone and Yma Sumac. Ready or not, you now must deal with Mr. C, for Armed Forces will be the first of Costello's three records to garner widespread FM play, and horror of horrors, there might even be a hit single among its 12 tracks.
In one of the album's cuts, "Chemistry Class," Costello tells us "You don't know what you started when you mixed it up with mine," and, it appears from this record, we didn't. What started as a bare bones rock trip by a decidedly non-hip, guilt-plagued ex-computer operator has blossomed into the first complete popular music statement of the '70s. Among lyric-writers, only Paul Simon — working in an entirely different but complimentary area — appears to be Costello's equal. Instrumentally, only Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band can compare with Costello and the Attractions for sheer musical attack. And, with Armed Forces, Costello unveils for the first time a full-blown vocal delivery, giving the lyrics the display they deserve.
The themes Costello has explored on his last two records (and assorted singles) — revenge, guilt, fashion and fury — have been expanded here to their obvious extreme. Armed Forces is mostly about manipulation and control, and though the lyrics are sometimes personal, they are obviously to be taken on a more universal level. The album was originally titled Emotional Fascism, a statement Costello (or his record label) perhaps found too direct.
Armed Forces opens with "Accidents Will Happen," an ambiguous but compelling treatise on blind victimization. "Senior Service" — "It's the breath you did not take / It's the death that's worse than fate" — is about being coaxed out of a position and retired by "them." "Oliver's Army" (the Oliver is Cromwell) is about England's colonization of Ireland, and any other piece of territory the Britons could shoot their way through. "Green Shirt" and "Goon Squad" are both concerned with tattletales and informers (From the latter: They're here to look you over and they're giving you the eye.")
"Moods for Moderns," which might even get some disco play, and "Busy Bodies" are both about latter-day mating rituals, and the latter is explicitly indictful, reducing sex to a mechanistic ritual that both partners perform with ill-conceived apathy: "So you're ready for a merger / with the company you're part of... Busy Bodies, caught in a concertina."
Costello's vision and perceptions are almost unbearingly bleak, though most of the songs serve as warnings rather than despairing tomes. Costello's automatic, unfeeling, every-cretin-for-himself society is almost sure to come, he says, but just might be averted.
After 30 minutes of homogenized holocaust, Costello ends the record with a song written 10 years ago by his producer, Nick Lowe. It's called "(What's So Funny About) Peace, Love and Understanding," and it's a perfect coda: "Every time I'm feeling this way, it just makes me want to cry / What's so funny 'bout peace, love and understanding?"
The song is a straight-ahead slice of power pop, all mid-'60s 12-string guitars and full, powerful chording. It's like nothing else on the album — in fact, it wouldn't be seriously out of context on a Springsteen or Who record — and this is Costello's way of letting us down easy. As nasty as things get, he says, you must still have faith and hope. It looks like Costello's isn't an existentialist after all.
Musically, the album is leaps and bounds above his former efforts, but without any sacrifice of the raw urgency. Lowe has given the record an almost-Beatlish tone, especially with the overlaid keyboards of "Green Shirt" and "Chemistry Class" and the jangly rhythm guitar work. There's not one lead guitar solo on the disc, and the harmony vocals are precise and textured. It will be most interesting to see how these songs are transferred to stage.
Thankfully, we'll get the chance to see and hear exactly how it will be done. Victory manager Kent Anderson has confirmed that the band — Costello, bassist Bruce Thomas, drummer Pete Thomas and keyboardist Steve Naive (nee Mason) — will perform their first Dayton concert at that theater on March 17. It couldn't happen at a better hall. And if you never listen to another thing I say, heed this word: It may be the best rock concert you'll ever see. Despite it all, Elvis Costello will not be denied.
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