CD Review - You Are the Quarry (Deluxe Edition)

It would be difficult to think of a better musical embodiment of vanity than Steven Morrissey, better known simply by his surname, “the Moz” or “Mozzer.” The flamboyant former Smiths frontman has made a career out of image: be it the hearing aid, the pocket-flung gladiolas or the potent-looking tommy gun he holds on the cover of his latest album, You Are The Quarry and its recently-released deluxe edition.

The album was initially released over the summer and drew some alternative radio airplay with the single “Irish Blood, English Heart,” on which Morrissey sounds as silky as Johnny Mathis as he bashes his native land with traditional vocal preening. This comes as the second track, wedged between virulent creeds “America is Not the World” and “I Have Forgiven Jesus.” The album is jam-packed with these bold state-of-the-Moz addresses culminating in the disc’s best track, “The World Is Full of Crashing Bores,” which flies from arrogance to desperation in the span of a single verse: “The world is full, oh oh, so full of crashing bores / And I must be one, cos no one ever turns to me to say / Take me in your arms.” Good to know that the man can still hurt, and the next track, the pummeling “How Could Anyone Know How I Feel?” backs this up, as well as showcasing his traditional love of verbose song titles. It’s all about the aching voice and the snide sentiment on these songs, as the backing music generally sounds fairly stock and not particularly tight, making one long for the whirring rockabilly of Moz’s Smiths partner Johnny Marr. Notable, though, is the way many of the songs benefit from a loudspeaker-like background, which blends well with his oh-so-affected singing.

But it’s really on the B-sides, away from label attention, where Morrissey steps up the traditional morbidity and gets away with murder. He bashes Ringo Starr in “It’s Hard To Walk Tall When You’re Small,” offering his most direct attack since he railed against Natalie Merchant after she covered his “Everyday Is Like Sunday.” Like he has so effortlessly throughout his career, he effectively dives into simple depths of misery on the shimmering “My Life Is An Endless Succession of People Saying Goodbye,” and when he wishes that he had gone down with the victims of “Munich Air Disaster 1958.” Who else these days has the courage to put his striking pangs of despair into lush pop songs, intricately worded and accompanied by somewhat boring rock that keeps the focus on the singer? These days, as it’s been for 20 years, the only man to turn to is that one-name Brit, the man we call Morrissey.