Elvis Costello's Armed Forces'm convinced that Franklin Bruno knows more about Armed Forces than even Elvis Costello does. His dense interrogation of the album traces its roots through punk back to Ray Charles and Burt Bacharach, examining the nuanced integration of so many different styles into something new, fierce, and idiosyncratic As contradictory and as caustic as his subject can be, Bruno understands that Costello's shortcomings only make him more fascinating as a human