Well you surely didn’t think he’d skimp on his lap of honour album, did you? I mean, did you really imagine during those wilderness years in the late 1990s and early Noughties that MORRISSEY wasn’t plotting this glorious re-emergence? And since he accomplished that with 2004’s “You Are The Quarry” it’s obvious he’d be making a grand gesture with the next one.
Thus, any of you foolishly expecting him to return with an album of low-key, experimental dance tracks will be disappointed because the provocatively-titled “Ringleader Of The Tormentors” is the full, Ennio Morricone-orchestrated deal, recorded in Rome and with violins and the kitchen sink attached.
Crucially, though, the songs are still very much there and this is also the sound of Morrissey (whose range as a vocalist seems to have broadened, incidentally) and band in viciously good nick. “I Will See You In Far-Off Places” opens with loops and Eastern-sounding keyboards (El Moz’s “Kashmir” anyone?), within seconds Boz Boorer and Alain Whyte are striking Townshend-style powerchords and the aforementioned kitchen sink is being squeezed into the mixing desk. There are some typical Fatwah-style observations on the afterlife (“One day I will close my eyes for good/ but I will see you in far-off places”), keyboard Arabesques and desert-rat potted trumpet blasts. It’s epic in design and only just the start.
Of course, there’s much been made of the fact “Ringleader…” is Morrissey’s ‘happy’ album (no, me neither) and the one where he’s finally professing carnal desire and second track “Dear God, Please Help Me” is the one with that immortal couplet “there are explosive kegs between my legs” in it. There’s more, actually, as it finds the Mozfather going as far as “Now I’m spreading your legs with mine in between” (whoa, steady on boy!), yet musically it’s actually a thing of great beauty with strings tiptoeing around, organs whirring discreetly and the timpani getting all Spectorian. At 5 minutes 52, it’s not a second too long.
OK, so for most of the remainder we’re back on guitar-based territory, though it’s mostly on a relatively grand scale. The swaggering “In The Future When All’s Well” is all pugilistic T-Rex guitars and beat group bravado which contrasts nicely with Morrissey’s sweet croon and some typically regretful/ hilarious lyrics (“Living longer than I intended/ something must have gone right”); the drum-heavy and tense “The Father Who Must Be Killed” sounds like the logical conclusion to “Barbarism Begins At Home” and is very much the sound of the worm turning (“step child, with every messy swipe you might just find you’re fighting for your life”) and “The Youngest Was The Most Loved” is quintessential Morrissey down to the “Panic”-style kids’ chorus on that unsettling chorus line of “there is no such thing in life as normal!”
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Elsewhere, Moz is in chart-busting territory and “Ringleader…” hoards a healthy cache of hit singles and would-be 45s. “You Have Killed Me” is the first and it’s got the requisite baritone guitars and massive chorus in just the right places; “I’ll Never Be Anybody’s Hero Now” finds Boorer and Whyte playing off each other beautifully and – arguably my personal favourite - “On The Streets I Ran” finds the band cooking and Morrissey entering into a hilarious plea to be spared with the Man Upstairs (“Dear God…take anyone, take people from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, just spare me!”) which has all the aloofness and arrogance you’d expect from a vintage Morrissey performance.
The widescreen Visconti production and Morricone input can’t disguise there are a couple of duffers. The lengthy “Life Is A Pigsty” is moody and enigmatic and probably an attempt to stretch in the way Moz has on tracks like “November Spawned A Monster” and “Late Night Maudlin Street” in the past, but at best it sounds mildly diverting, while the pathos-and-timpani grand finale “At Last I Am Born” actually sounds oddly slight and inconsequential despite its’ grand designs.
Still, such is the scope of “Ringleader Of The Tormentors” that we can allow Moz his customary pair of misfires. It’s not another “Queen Is Dead” of course (let’s not get silly about it, eh?) but it quite probably IS the best of his solo work (“Vauxhall & I” etc) only with bells (and strings and that massive Belfast sink) on for good measure. Like I said before: what did YOU imagine it would sound like?
Morrissey download shop at:
http://www.7digital.com/morrissey
Also go to: www.ringleaderofthetormentors.com/listen/?aff=w-and-h
Video Interview
pnm://realaudio.integra.fr/lesinrocks/Musique/0406/morrissey-itw-hd.rm
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