[a][1][3] Langer and Winstanley were one of the most popular production teams in Britain at the time, having recently had several hit singles with groups such as Madness, Dexys Midnight Runners and the Teardrop Explodes.

[4] Unlike the more relaxed approach of Imperial Bedroom's producer Geoff Emerick, Langer and Winstanley inserted themselves into the creative process, structuring the songs intently and left little room for improvisation; the former wanted the band to play their parts the same way over and over again.

This process yielded a pair of "proud and wishful songs" on "Love and Marriage": "The Greatest Thing" and "Let Them All Talk", and a couple about the "Ugly Truth": "Mouth Almighty" and "Charm School".

To not mimic the sound entirely, Costello added the trumpeter Dave Plews to the horns;[4] the latter's prior commitments as a member of Eurythmics' touring band led to his substitution on "The World and His Wife" by Stuart Robson.

[1] Characterised by critics as new wave,[11] pop rock,[12] soul,[13] and R&B,[14][15] the author Mick St. Michael opined that the LP showed the widest variety of musical styles since Trust.

[17] In The New York Times, Stephen Holden wrote that Punch embraces genres from 1960s soul, late Beatles psychedelia and cool jazz, "compacting and juxtaposing these allusions with a dazzling sleight of hand".

[14] Lock wrote that the lyrics contain bouts of black humour are and presented with "calmness and compassion" that makes them more "chilling";[17] the biographer Brian Hinton felt they amounted to "a terrifying world picture".

[14] AllMusic's Mark Deming summarised: "Both lyrically and melodically, the song suggested an updated variant on classic '60s soul, with the influence of Smokey Robinson peeking through Costello's extended literary metaphor in yet another look at the complexities of romance.

[14][23] With lyrics describing love as a type of fantasy in a unique language, Costello uses the phrase "punching the clock" for the narrator as an expression of starting his work shift or stopping the passage of time in order to find a new lover who will "take his breath away" following a failed marriage.

[16] St. Michael opines that the song's vocal quote of Armed Forces' "Accidents Will Happen" serves as an acknowledgement of Costello's past and openness for the future with a new musical direction.

[2] Musically, "Shipbuilding" demonstrates Costello's knowledge of jazz, particularly with Baker's trumpet solo,[14] who Hinton argues "brings out the haunting tones of an instrument which usually brags and blusters".

[14] While Gouldstone refers to it as "a wife beater's manifesto",[16] Hinton disagrees with this assessment, stating that the non-celebratory song concerns bullying rather than violence, both in the workplace and bedroom, which is reiterated by Costello's "distasteful" vocal performance.

[16] In the song, the main character escapes the reality of daily life by watching films;[14] he is the "invisible man" as he feels outcast by people around him, leading him to imagine a nightmarish totalitarian world.

[4] Filled with vague lyrics and a sense of paranoia, Gouldstone argues that the song belongs with Costello's other tracks that denounce the treatment of big business on everyday people, from "Welcome to the Working Week" (1977), "Senior Service" (1979) and "Opportunity" (1980).

"King of Thieves" is sinister like "The Invisible Man", and similar to 1978's "Night Rally", represents a warning, "foreseeing a world ruled by bureaucracies and unelected despots".

[16] The music reinforces the lyrical themes; the author describes its "unrelenting" drumbeat sounding like "a march to the death camps", and crashing piano chords that "fall like doom".

[4] Providing a musical uplift as the LP's closer, Hinton argues that the lyrics culminate the album's themes of "boredom, family breakdown, drunken sex and a taste for violence".

[2] The album's cover artwork is more conventional than Costello's previous records; Gouldstone felt it was an attempt to convince listeners that the music inside "won't be too outlandish".

Images of the album's musicians appear sideways on the sheet: Afrodiziak are wearing turbans, the TKO Horns are dressed in suit and ties, while Baker, with his eyes closed, Hinton believes "has the pallor of a corpse".

In an even more disturbing montage, a photo of Elvis and his band has been corrupted so that the Attractions' heads are replaced with symbols; a pill capsule for Nieve, a question mark for Pete, a circle of black cogs for Bruce.

[2][7] In May 1983, Costello issued "Pills and Soap" as a single on his newly created IMP label,[d] an imprint of his F-Beat subsidiary Demon Records, under the pseudonym "The Imposter", after a song on Get Happy!!

[17] More positively, Sweeting stated in Melody Maker: "Where Imperial Bedroom often wallowed low in the water under its top-heavy superstructure of grandiose arrangements and encyclopedic lyrics, Punch the Clock draws up a short-list of priorities and nails them with ruthless efficiency.

"[13] In a five-star review for Record Mirror, Mike Gardner declared Punch the Clock "a vital collection that holds its head up high even amongst Elvis' vast legacy".

[17][15][19] David Hepworth of Smash Hits felt there was "enough power and detail" in tracks such as "King of Thieves" and "The World and His Wife" to warrant repeated listens,[19] while Jon Young deemed Punch the Clock "a smart album that protests its own cleverness too much" in Trouser Press.

[43] Rolling Stone's Christopher Connelly declared it "a satisfying, if unstartling, opus", one that contains what fans expect of him: "terrific tunes, take-it-or-leave-it singing and jaw-breaking wordplay that baffles as much as it enlightens.

He further condemned the singing as lacking "customary driven edge" and the production as "provides a flat sound", concluding: "The man who brilliantly dissected life in terms of "Armed Forces" appears to have declared neutrality.

[28] He bemoaned its "lack of heart", "misplaced arrangements" and felt it disregarded longevity: "A lot of the planning, the imaginary production of the record relates to pop music of the moment."

"[50] Writing for Blender magazine in 2005, Douglas Wolk deemed the record a "not-entirely successful attempt to score pop hits", but saw "a whimsy and effervescence" that rarely appears in the artist's other works.

[46] In a retrospective write-up, Trouser Press called the album "another tour de force",[54] while Lee Zimmerman of Goldmine wrote that it includes some of Costello's best songs of the era and some of his most successful.

[48] Zimmerman praised the bonus tracks as "perfectly complement[ing]" the originals, even finding Costello's ten solo demos highlighted the strength of the songs themselves.