Originally titled “Emotional Fascism,” Costello’s third album and the follow up to the indisputably great This Year’s Model brings the musical and thematic theses of his early work to its logical conclusions. From the beginning, the artist seemed to regard the fault lines between romantic, creative, and political treachery as porous, frequently describing romantic situations in terms of political totalitarianism, and vice versa. Having experienced the rise of Thatcherism in England and with the political right in a similar ascent in the United States, and in the throes of a doomed romance with the model and society maven Bebe Buell, Armed Forces is the record on which Costello’s head basically explodes. “Well I just don’t know where to begin,” he sings on the first line of the album, on the classic opener “Accidents Will Happen,” and then proceeds to spend the ensuing 36 minutes making clever, wry, caustic, and desperate observations on everything from the evils of colonialism to the sanctity of true love. While the lyrics are filled with anxiety and foreboding, the music is a study in contrast – bright and attractive, filled with ingenious up-tempo melodies, inventive synths, and big-hook, major-key sing-alongs. But the things we are singing along to! Amongst countless other human atrocities: lovebirds portrayed as two little Hitlers fighting for control; a chemistry class obsessed with human garbage and “the final solution”; an admission that the singer would like to chop off someone’s head and watch it roll into a basket. Music this frightening should perhaps not be allowed to be so catchy. By the end, Costello even seems to have exhausted himself, ceding the writing on the final track, and instead recording a pitch-perfect cover of producer Nick Lowe’s classic “What’s So Funny (About Peace, Love And Understanding)?” Lowe had originally penned the track as a kind of lark – a sarcastic take on trite hippy sentiments. Coming at the end of Armed Forces, the track is transformed utterly into a desperate howl of the deepest conviction. Having so thoroughly detailed a world of cruelty and corruption, even Costello needs a little reassurance.