A Good Quarry, This One

(This review was written 3 months after the release of the album in 2004. Looking back now, I think I made a mistake with my judgement of its opening song. Read on to see more about it.)

After 7 long years, Steven Patrick Morrissey is back and is staging a vicious comeback to the pop music world via the album You Are The Quarry, a very strong LP that should see him win back not only the hearts of his devoted and casual fans alike, but of his critics as well who had viewed him as an artist long past his grandiose prime.

The album possesses two of his most engaging and solid singles that could very well stack up against his best singles ever as a solo singer after the demise of the indie-rock band the Smiths: the pumped-up Irish Blood, English Heart and the deliciously sound The First of the Gang to Die. The former, a ferocious amalgamation of piercing pride, sheer patriotism, and forceful guitar stream, has Morrissey lamenting about the Royal Family, Oliver Cromwell and Labours and Tories in a very upfront, wroth manner, while the latter is a near-epic glam-pop song romanticizing the Latino gangs that reminds us of Suedehead, his first great hit since he went solo. In fact, these two alone can single-handedly propel Moz to further commercial success he hasn't chartered before, yet the album, as one will discover, is more than these two great gems. It is a seven-year accumulation of unresolved angst, bitterness, sympathy and love directly aimed at Jesus (yes, he is agnostic), to America, to the "uniformed whores", to his critics, to the female population of homosexuals, to someone who loves him, to someone who doesn't, to a love lost (…well, to just about everyone else, if you want), carefully stitched, in a much superior way, into the borrowed sounds from his last two studio albums, Maladusted and Southpaw Grammar (both unfairly under appreciated). The emotions he infused, through his lyrics and his wonderful, crooning voice, in all tracks are direct and heart-felt. Consider the lyrics of Come Back to Camden, a dramatic piano-covered ballad: "Drinking tea with the taste of the Thames, Sullenly on a chair on the pavement. Here you'll find, my thoughts and I, And here is the very last plea from my heart." With lyrics like these, who needs Keane and Coldplay for their emo-music? I Have Forgiven Jesus, on the other hand, sees him doing The Cure's Friday I'm In Love (we just hope it is out of mockery): Monday - humiliation, Tuesday - suffocation, Wednesday - condescension, Thursday - is pathetic, By Friday life has killed me, though his voice here is the highlight. Plainly superb, amazing, especially in the end, when he repeatedly teased Jesus, "Do you hate me?, Do you hate me?, Do you hate me?" In the song How Can Anybody Possibly Know How I Feel, with the help of a semi-vitriolic soundtrack, one can alarmingly sense his universal hatred:. "I've had my face dragged in, Fifteen miles of shit, And I do not, And I do not, And I do not like it." The hopelessly doomed romantic in him, an almost legendary Moz quality, can be noticed through the lines: The woman of my dreams/ She/ She never came along/ The woman of my dreams/ Well/ There never was one (I'm Not Sorry), There's a place in the sun/ For anyone who has the will to chase one And I think I've found mine/ Yes/ I do believe I have found mine (Let Me Kiss You).

Other astounding tracks include The World is Full of Crashing Bores (a typical Morrissey title), I Like You (an atypical Morrissey title), You Know I Couldn't Last (a Speedway-type album closer) and All The Lazy Dykes (a grower song). The only letdown in the whole album is the beginning track, America Is Not The World, an ambitious take on the world's favorite villain, but which fall flat in its attempt, with its lackadaisical lyrics, and considering it could have matched The Smiths' The Queen is Dead in terms of the power and impact to the album.

Although this return album somehow lacks the usual Moz humor (which is clever, intelligent and hilariously funny), I would still say that this should make an interesting quarry for you, particularly if you're looking to bask your self in some sharp, sensitive and sincere indie-pop songs.