Ringleader Of The Tormentors

The expectations awaiting each new Morrissey album are such that disappointment seems almost inevitable when the records actually come out, although it's testament to the man's talents that even when they're not the masterpiece hoped for they're usually at least as good as most of what's about at the time.

ROTT is perhaps not consistent enough to be a masterpiece, but is good throughout and contains some real gems. The epic drama and dark intensity of 'Life is a Pigsty' has been rightly judged by many as the highlight, but there are plenty of other strong tracks backing it up. My favourite is probably next single 'The youngest was the most loved', which is carried along by a sense of urgency that makes it sound more like the Smiths than anything he's done for ages, particularly the yodelly bit at the end.

For some reason ROTT is not as immediate as most of his solo work and has taken quite a few plays for me to form an opinion of it, so I would say to anyone not enamoured on their first listen to give it more time. For me, 'Vauxhall and I' remains his best solo album, but ROTT is definitely a grower, and gets closer to this peak than most of his more recent material

While 'You Are The Quarry' was a decent enough record I never bought the media hysteria that surrounded it: far from being Morrissey's best ever record there was no way it was in the same league as his solo peak era pair of 'Your Arsenal' and 'Vauxhaul And I', and much as I'd love it to 'Ringleader of the Tormentors' doesn't quite reach these dizzy heights either. While not quite amongst his best however 'Ringleaders' is certainly a very good Morrissey album, and probably slightly better than 'You Are The Quarry', although this may not be readily apparent on first listen. Where 'Quarry' was stacked with very immediate and direct pop songs 'Ringleader' goes for the more obscure path, the result being that this is very much a 'grower' - an album that may leave you cold on first listen but will subsequently reveal itself to be musically rich on later listens.

It's not all perfect: opener 'I Will See You In Far-off Places' is more notable for it's middle-Eastern mood and Morrissey's yodelling than for any real interesting music or lyrics, lead-off single 'You Have Killed me' borders on the bland, 'The Youngest Was The Most Loved' is a mediocre song saved by the masterstroke addition of a children's choir; and 'The Father Who Must be Killed' is hamstrung by it's leaden verses. Note: none of these songs are awful - they are just rather mediocre compared to the albums highlights.

Better are the up-tempo breathless live sounding rock of 'On The Streets I Ran' and 'I Just Want To See The Boy Happy', the almost Beatles-esque pop of 'In The Future When All's Well' and the musically rich 'At Last I Am Born'. Morrissey is at his peak here with the slower ballads: 'To Me You Are A Work Of Art' and 'I'll Never Be Anybody's Hero Now' are both moving pieces, with the latter featuring one of Morrissey's most audacious vocal performances as he moves from falsetto to bass within the space of one line.

Standing above all as the albums twin highlights for me are the two 'epics': 'Dear God Please Help me' and 'Life Is A Pigsty'. 'Dear God Please Help Me' was already the subject of much pre-release media attention due to such explicit lyrics as "there are explosive kegs between my legs" but it is actually a very sombre and moving ballad with some gorgeous string backing courtesy of Ennio Morricone. 'Life is a Pigsty' however sounds literally like no other Morrissey song I've heard before, but perhaps comes closest to being a sort of modern day epic in the 'That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore'-mode, with the song building from it's menacing yet quiet opening into a hard-hitting finale.

Lyrically this album has been cast by the media as 'Morrissey finds sex, love and happiness', but while some tracks can be seen in this light there are just as many that reveal the old misery guts we all know and love of old ("I'll never be anybody's lover now - it hurts because it's true" etc), and to be honest the feelings of contentment uttered on 'At Last I Am Born' are really no different to those on 'Now my Heart is Full' - except of course the journalists weren't listening then.

'Ringleader of the Tormentors' is slightly inconsistent, and it lacks the knockout punch that a track like 'First of the Gang to Die' would have provided, but this is still a very interesting album that will reward repeat listens. Not his best - but still very good.

Let's start with the positives. This album is musically the best that Morrissey has created as a solo artist. His voice sounds smoother and more refined than ever. Indeed, "On The Streets I Ran" (the highlight of the record) rivals anything done by Morrisey or The Smiths in terms of vocal expression. The backing on tracks like "You Have Killed Me" and "I Just Want To See The Boy Happy" is heavier than any of Moz's Smiths work while the album as a whole remains less suffocatingly rockabilly than something like Your Arsenal. There is a lovely balance and variation in the tracks here - from the Turkish hypnosis of opener "I Will See You In Far Off Places" to the rainy ambience of the Ennio Morrocone arranged "Life Is A Pig Sty" and similarily Morrocone influenced "Dear God Please Help Me" driven by church organ and lucious string arrangements.

Yet, if this is the most musically daring and interesting Morrissey effort to date, one key ingredient seems to have suffered tremendously; the lyrics. For some this might not be important but to me this is THE reason par excellence to listen to a Morrissey record. Yet we end up with lines like "there are explosive kegs between my legs". There just seems to be something lacking - where there used to be a key concern for Morrissey in creating his own romantic fantasy of pariah championing Manchester, girls jumping from ferris wheels, and a genuine delicacy in his word-choice we now get obtuse statements like "there is no such thing in life as normal". Where Morrissey was once a shoulder to cry on, an artist in whose work one could always find something empathetic, his lyrics now feel almost like a dictation - there's face value and nothing more. This isn't quite true of all the tracks - "On The Streets I Ran" creates a delightfully ghastly imagery while there are other glimpses of lyrical flair. Yet the majority or the record fails to be nearly as lyrically exciting or appealing as much of Morrissey's cannon has been.

Ringleader of the Tormentors is certainly still an enjoyable listen - tracks like "You Have Killed Me", "The Youngest Was The Most Loved", "In The Future When All's Well", "On The Streets I Ran" (can you tell how much I enjoyed this song yet?!) and indeed a fair few others are extremely catchy, while musically this collection of songs is the most daring Morrissey has been. Yet lyrically there is something significantly lacking. For all its glossy production and big-name contributors Ringleader has lost some of the personal charm of past ventures. It is no doubt incredibley hard for someone who has achieved such tremendous success, and consequently some degree of detachment from reality, to find suitabley compelling subject material, and this is what ultimately means this can't be one of the great Morrissey records.