Morrissey
Years of Refusal

For a man who opens his ninth solo album with a track that proclaims "there is no love in modern life," he's right, it is "a miracle [he] even made it this far". The dismal sentiment of opener Something Is Squeezing My Skull is typical Morrissey, and the very thing that fuels his disparagers. Still, it does kick off Years of Refusal with a bang, and is quickly followed with enough rolling drums, gritty keyboards, diverse electronics and pure exploding energy to defy anyone who would call this album depressing.

Standout track Black Cloud makes superb use of Jeff Beck's guitar skills, soaked in a deluge of reverb and rejection, while the Spanish rhythms, mariachi trumpets and punctuating drum blasts of When Last I Spoke To Carol throb with reflection and regret. The easy flow of I'm Throwing My Arms Around Paris makes for an upsettingly safe choice of single, as it is significantly surpassed in quality by so many other tracks here. Many, but far from all, as the allusion that Morrissey has life's riddles all figured out results in the sanctimonious That's How People Grow Up and the unyielding and self-righteous Sorry Doesn't Help, which suggests there may be a reason Morrissey is always singing about loneliness and longing.

Love or loathe the man and his eminent lyricism, he always seems genuine and frank, and with Years of Refusal he presents a powerful and wide-ranging project that goes out in a mass of obscuring distortion and contented isolation.

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