Morrissey – Years Of Refusal

is back and apparently he has a score to settle. After just a few listens it is hard to place ‘Years of Refusal’ anywhere other than the upper echelons of his work, and once the dust has settled and the venom in his voice still declines offers of subsidence this LP may even have fought its way to the top of the Morrissey solo tree.

Swathes of lavish guitar, boom heavy bass and all-out rock are the order of the day as a protagonist, especially smug and happy with himself, searches the world for something to be bitter about and as usual unearths no shortage of enemies. The album’s heavy nature is made immediately accessible by the two tracks that crept onto last years almost pointless ‘Greatest Hits’ collection, both of which were given too short a shrift under the weight of negativity which greeted the album. ‘All You Need Is Me’ and ‘That’s How People Grow Up’ fit seamlessly and act as an easy starting point for those not yet ready to be blown out of the water.

Opener ‘Something Is Squeezing My Skull’ storms in and rushes quickly out again with a barrage of “please don’t give me more” following a lyric that melts into nothing more than a list of prescription drugs, only this Mancunian could pull this off. ‘Mama Lay Softly On The Riverbed’ escorts “…my skull” off the premises and marches in with its “pigs in grey suits” and “uncivil servants”; then in turn makes way for ‘Black Cloud’ chopping between keyboards, heavy electric and blunt acoustic guitars it signs off with the album still less than ten minutes old and already born of it are three understated, but brilliant tunes. It only gets better with the beautiful relevance and archetypal Morrissey of ‘Throwing My Arms Around Paris’ before the grunge guitar of ‘All You Need Is Me’ kicks in.

The death of a young admirer in ‘When I Last Spoke to Carol’ is the first and possibly only time on the album, where the story and the lyrics overbear the song itself. While Morrissey is undoubtedly king of the spiky couplet, they are an extra dimension on this album without ever really being the sole focus. Whilst all the aforementioned tracks that head up this long player are the more obvious examples of quality, as this belligerent beast of an album, so soaked in vitriol, grinds you down you will see it is the second half where the gems are hidden. ‘One Day Goodbye Will Be Farewell’ and ‘It’s Not Your Birthday Anymore’ show Morrissey at his most opaque and pop in the former and his most aggressive, cantankerous and intense in the latter. Even if the eeriness of ‘You Were Good In Your Time’ is a crescendo lacking in punch ‘I’m Ok By Myself’ kills the album in a blaze of glory; there is no denying that this is Morrissey at his best.

With the same cornermen as he has had for the last decade at least, it is hard to tell where this record has come from; one can only guess it is an amalgamation of his previous two efforts. Whatever the secret, as he approaches his half century, 25 years after ‘Hand In Glove’, quiffs and NHS glasses, Stephen Patrick Morrissey is still going and proving, with consummate ease, that class is permanent.