Morrissey’s return after a seven year break in 2004 with ‘You are the quarry’ was an astonishing rise from the flames of his once great career, quiff repositioned and collar adjusted, he dusted himself down and continued with his business.

Through the short time leading the musical prozac of The Smiths through his frustratingly inconsistent solo career, he has always been heavily influential but equally flawed. His disciples, if you know any Moz obsessive’s, you’ll understand, treat any shortcomings of their hero with a blinkered refusal to acknowledge anything as ridiculous as that he can actually do wrong and does so with annoying regularity.

With his reputation shot from dodgy albums and perceived dodgy political statements, no-one expected a double whammy of brilliant comeback singles; the incredibly defiant ‘Irish blood, English heart’, the desolate gorgeousness of ‘Let me kiss you’ or the almost euphoric ‘First of the Gang to die’, alongside them there were at least five other tracks just as good on what was his seventh solo album.
Coming so soon after ‘Quarry’, the Tony Visconti produced ‘Ringleader of the tormentors’ showed further glimpses of Morrissey at his best in ‘the swooning ‘I’ll never be anybody’s hero now’, the majestic Morriconne collaboration; ‘Dear god, please help me’ and his BEST solo track, the highly emotive ‘Life is a pigsty’ but signs of musical rot setting in were becoming apparent.

As X-Factor pop-mutants approve being in their ‘comfort zone’ (you mean filling supermarket shelves, right??), it’s not something that suits Morrissey. He’s supposed to be the beautiful outsider, he is not supposed to be the jumper lost in the wardrobe that you last wore in 1998 but can’t bring yourself to discard. He has played with the majority of people in his band long enough for the seething resentments to resemble a marriage which has run its course several times.

Steam rolling into the ears with the impressively aggressive opener ‘Something is squeezing my skull’, he portrays an existence reliant on prescription drugs to get through the day “diazepam; that’s valium, temazepam, lithium, HRT, ECT” before pleading, “oh how long must I stay on this stuff?”, it’s stirring stuff, a statement of intent, unfortunately that intent is to pummel the ears with musical slurry a singer can only wade in it, beating even a ringleader such as Mr. SPM.
The relentless chugging of ‘Mama lay me softly on the riverbed’ is dirgelike meandering and ‘Black Cloud’, oddly featuring hairy old rock pig Jeff Beck succeed in their endeavour to be over average with aplomb. The two new tracks that were tagged onto last years missed opportunity of a ‘Best of’, inexplicably re-appear here too, ‘All you need is me’ continues to tread water whereas ‘That’s where people grow up’ actually improves within its original intended place.

There are moments to keep even the most passive of Morrissey fans engaged. Although it doesn’t quite work, the mariachi led ‘When I last spoke to Carol’ shows there is a place for an occasional stab at variation despite every indie act in the UK doing cod Country and Western to show how amazingly innovative and eclectic they are.
When the blows are lessened, as on the lilting nod to his former band; “I’m throwing my arms around Paris,” his literary genius is abundantly clear, “In the absence of your love, and in the absence of human touch, I’ve decided I’m throwing my arms around Paris because only stone and steel accept my love”, Chris Martin cannot write like this.

The rollicking ‘Someday goodbye will mean farewell’, one of the best of the harder tracks here ends in typically dramatic fashion with him proclaiming “One day goodbye will be farewell, so grab me while we still have the time” whilst the finest track here, the dreamy torch song ‘You were good in your time’ is almost encore like in its sentiment with Morrissey giving one of his best vocal performances ever whilst acknowledging how his legacy is and always will be so important to his many fans, the lyrics resonate clearly; “You were good in your time and we thank you, you made me feel less alone, you made me feel not quite so deformed, uninformed and hunchbacked”.

More so than ever before, loss is at the forefront of Morrissey’s mind but instead of death, he constantly alludes to himself disappearing soon and we’d best make the most of it as we’ll miss him when he’s gone, although he has said this many times so boys and wolves come to mind. Will we miss him? Of course, it goes without saying but with each release becoming less essential than the last as it did during his mid nineties slump maybe it’s time for him to embrace his rich past and join Elton and Celine on the Vegas strip.

Chris Todd
7/10