Morrissey, You Are the Quarry

This is by far the best thing that Morrissey has done in the past 15 years. "Your Arsenal" is the only other thing from Morrissey's solo career that even compares to this. Definitely worth owning.

Morrissey, You Are the Quarry was a welcome return from the Mozzer himself, as he found himself in favour with a new crop of young bands inspired by the Smiths and was welcomed back into the fold by a music press which spent much of the last 10 years saying his career was over. The album, while hardly a rival to the superb Vauxhall & I or Your Arsenal, contains some true gems in the form of "First of the Gang," "Let Me Kiss You," "I Have Forgiven Jesus," "The World Is Full of Crashing Bores" and "How Can Anybody Possibly Know How I Feel."

Morrissey has adopted his trademark poetic style into that of a surly lounge singer, and, at the tender age of 45, it's a stylistic move that suits him. While he does still rock a bit on tracks such as "Irish Blood, English Heart," he also tends towards quite a lot of crooning. He has one of those voices that you either love or hate, and, if you love it, then you're going to love these songs.

Unfortunately, there are a couple of less than amazing songs. I find "All the Lazy Dykes" simply drags, halting the pace of the album, and opener "America Is Not the World," while biting, topical, humourous and true, is really not the sort of song you're going to want to play over and over again, and it will probably date fairly quickly.

Overall though, You Are the Quarry showcases Morrissey back near the top of his game, tearing strips off English colonialism, Tony Blair, George Bush, policemen, bonkers fans and generally anyone who happens to have annoyed him recently. He also provides a couple of emotional and rather touching, self-effacing moments as well, branding himself unloveable yet again and giving his disaffected fans quite a lot to which they can relate. It's classic Moz and can provide either a decent introduction into why he has such a fanatical cult following or provide hours of listening lovliness to die-hard fans who have suffered horribly from his protracted absence from the recording studio.