Morrissey

I can’t help but feel that even if Morrissey’s recent 'retirement’ revelation had gone unnoticed, overlooked, or maybe unsaid, then the world’s music press, and indeed his devoted army of followers, would still have gladly got their hands dirty dissecting the very guts of Years Of Refusal, if only to arrive at this 'shock-shock-horror’ announcement not long after he did.

Of course he has always worn his heart on his sleeve, but despite the chic, kitsch, and positively desolate subject matters that had always underlined much of his Smiths glory years, and into his solo successes into the mid-1990s, before his indie pursuits were left limping from the aftermath of what we remember as Blair’s Britpop boom, it appears Morrissey’s words are now, when we maybe need them the most, at their most revealing.

Back in 2004, just when it looked like it was all over for Morrissey, after seven years lost in limbo, he came back at us with two of the greatest 'comeback’ albums of his career in the shape of the electric 'You Are The Quarry’ and two years later, it’s cocksure companion 'Ringleader Of The Tormentors’. These were albums that unveiled a sharp pop factor not seen in his work for some time. Not since the bullet proof 'Vauxhall & I’ album had he delivered songs with such bite and uncompromising conviction. Shapely singles with real backbone like 'Irish Blood, English Heart’ 'Last Of The Gang To Die’ or 'You Have Killed Me’ that almost swaggered their way into the Top 40, chalking the mightier than mighty Mozza back on everyone’s cool list once again. More importantly, both 'Quarry’ and 'Ringleader’ recovered a thirst for Morrissey again, a hunger for that 'spokesperson of a generation' Smiths-stickered Morrissey, that 'Morrissey loves Marr' Morrissey, or maybe for an all together brand new Morrissey. A Morrissey that, the more we ignored him, the closer he got.

From the blistering glam noise of opener 'Something Is Squeezing My Skull’ it quickly becomes apparent that Years Of Refusal could be another prize-fighter, a near classic. An album that, once you squeeze past knotty and 'teasing’ lines like 'I’m doing very well, I can block out the present and past now' or ' it’s a miracle I made it this far' and 'one day goodbye will be farewell...', feeds off the same snappy pop and twisted heartbreak of it’s predecessors. Such revealing rhymes soon get lost inside a record with real promise and a determination to move on its own merits. An album that uncovers infectious crooners like 'It’s Not Your Birthday Anymore’ or 'I’m Thowing My Arms Around Paris’ before switching tactics with the military stamp of 'Mama Lay Softly On Me’ or the rockabilly 'When I Last Spoke To Carol’ which has the drive of a new look 'Vicar In A Tutu’, in much the same way 'Death Of A Disco Dancer’ echoed 'Dear Prudence’ or when 'In The Future When All’s Well’ cried T Rex. 'All You Need Is Me’ also wastes no time in declaring itself a modern classic of sorts, grinding harder than the rest, and with some of his most ballsy lyrics to date.

Eventually you get hit with the romantic notion that this record could almost be a kind of clouded response, or maybe conclusion, to 'Quarry’ and 'Ringleaders’ in the sense that it truly reaffirms Morrissey’s return to form, his powers on Planet Pop and his unwillingness to 'hang with the gang’. It also highlights the way Morrissey, and Morrissey’s prolific career, unlike the paths of your Bowies or your Madonnas, has never give in to rock music’s demand for reinvention. God save Morrissey. Let’s hope his light never goes out.