Better cut off all identifying labels

Before they put you on the torture table

Cause somewhere in the quisling clinic

There's a shorthand typist taking seconds of her minutes

She's listening in to the Venus line

She's picking out names--I hope none of them are mine

It's not as much fun as Costello's old ballads and dance numbers, but it's just as convincing.

LAMENT IF YOU MUST the end of Elvis Costello's youthful spontaneity, the two-minute rockers flowing endlessly from his pen and mouth. At least he hasn't lost his energy and style--he's just turned them in a slightly different direction. Whether he goes off the deep end in future albums remains to be seen.

The one trend on Armed Forces he should guard against is the over-production that seeps into the album. Nick Lowe has produced all of Elvis Costello's albums, and has always done right by his music, but on Armed Forces the fiddling just begins to interfere with his simple music formulas. Costello's voice may not be beautiful, but it's strong, warm, and conveys angry emotion better than any other popular singer's today. There's no need for it to be buried in muddy mixing, bounced from one stereo channel to another, or treated with synthetic echo.

With three records to his name, each a masterpiece, only the most prejudiced or uninformed listener will dismiss Costello as "just another new-waver" or "a boring punk." He's new wave only chronologically, and Armed Forces makes use of a diversity of styles most performers today are too incompetent or unimaginative to handle. If he can hold his paranoia in check, and prevent it from freezing all humanity out of his music, Elvis Costello may well go on to dominate the next decade the way his namesake dominated the '50s. At least until 1984, that is--if he can outwit the thought police and the "goon squad." Wish him luck.