Morrissey – Make-up Is A Lie Reviewed: A polished return to familiar gripes

Morrissey - Make-up Is A Lie

★★★★

SIRE

Cancelled gigs, avoidant record labels, crackpot outbursts… for some time, things have been ‘complicated’ in the world of Morrissey. Yet if neurosis, despair and paranoia remain his materials, here he uses them well.

In as impressive voice as he’s ever been, with a polished rock/ funk-lite/ continental trip-hop production, it revisits multiple past phases: homesick, The Monsters Of Pig Alley reprises the Anglo-coshboy ’90s; the booze-sodden, priapic Boulevard recalls noughties European visions; his more recent American sheen emerges quizzically from the Parisien cemetery-stalking title song.

Best is the stark Many Icebergs Ago, a soliloquy of East End pubs, suggestive “stirrings below” and the long dark corridor of his life as it approaches its terminus. His most convincing howl for ages, it will likely mostly be heard by the loyalists of the Moz Barmy Army, which is all his own fault.

Make-up Is A Lie is out March 6 on Sire.

ORDER: Amazon | Rough Trade | HMV

Tracklisting:

1. You’re Right, It’s Time
2. Make-Up Is A Lie
3. Notre-Dame
4. Amazona
5. Headache
6. Boulevard
7. Zoom Zoom The Little Boy
8. The Night Pop Dropped
9. Kerching Kerching
10. Lester Bangs
11. Many Icebergs Ago
12. The Monsters Of Pig Alley

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