Years Of Refusal (+DVD) - Morrissey

...a few scores - after years of refusal. This sense of pent-up frustration and urgency is further accentuated by the album's aggressive, punk feel.

Track 1 - 'Something is Squeezing my Skull'

Morrissey draws on his own experience of using prescription drugs to combat depression in the album's opening track 'Something is Squeezing my Skull.' When he repeatedly delivers the line "I'm doing very well" his sarcasm ...
...guitars echo the mood of many of the tracks that follow.

Track 2 - 'Mama Lay Softly on the Riverbed'

Perhaps the strongest track on the album is 'Mama Lay Softly on the Riverbed.' (Surely destined to be the follow-up single to 'I'm Throwing My Arms Around Paris.') The song explores a child's attempt to explain and ultimately come to terms with its mother's suicide. Like the album's opening track, this song has relentless, ... more

"Years of Refusal" is Morrissey's ninth solo album. It was recorded at the end of 2007, mixed in the first half of 2008 and finally released in February 2009. Morrissey co-wrote the album's 12 tracks with Alain Whyte, Boz Boorer and Jesse Tobias, and has reportedly described it as his "strongest work to date." In the following review I will discuss whether the album lives up to the Mozzfather's claims.

As we have come to expect from Morrissey, many of the songs on 'Years of Refusal' appear to have an autobiographical origin and fans will recognise several of Mozza's reoccurring themes: unrequited love, mortality and loss etc. Even though the content of the songs is familiar, Morrissey's high energy delivery appears to be more passionate and edgier than before. Perhaps this vocal quality illustrates his conscious decision to no longer repress his thoughts and emotions; and to alternatively settle a few scores - after years of refusal. This sense of pent-up frustration and urgency is further accentuated by the album's aggressive, punk feel.

Track 1 - 'Something is Squeezing my Skull'

Morrissey draws on his own experience of using prescription drugs to combat depression in the album's opening track 'Something is Squeezing my Skull.' When he repeatedly delivers the line "I'm doing very well" his sarcasm is all too evident. The song's massive drums and jarring guitars echo the mood of many of the tracks that follow.

Track 2 - 'Mama Lay Softly on the Riverbed'

Perhaps the strongest track on the album is 'Mama Lay Softly on the Riverbed.' (Surely destined to be the follow-up single to 'I'm Throwing My Arms Around Paris.') The song explores a child's attempt to explain and ultimately come to terms with its mother's suicide. Like the album's opening track, this song has relentless, unforgiving percussion. Its soaring chorus is Morrissey at his very best.

Track 3 - 'Black Cloud'

'Black Cloud' opens with angelic voices and heavenly guitars. But this mood is short-lived. Distorted guitars, rock drums and a relentless bass-line soon kick in as Morrissey explores what happens when unrequited love becomes an obsession.

Track 4 - 'I'm Throwing My Arms Around Paris'

Mozza has jokingly described 'I'm Throwing My Arms Around Paris,' as his aborted 2007 Eurovision entry. In the track he casts aside his previous love affairs with Los Angeles and Rome, to alternatively flirt with the French capital. The song's strength comes from its beautiful simplicity. It is perhaps the most commercial track on the album, as confirmed by its almost continual airplay.

Track 5 - 'All You Need is Me'

Like 'That's How People Grow Up,' 'All You Need is Me' was featured on Morrissey's 2008 'Greatest Hits' album. Morrissey alludes to his motivation for writing the track in a recent interview - "If you have a really dedicated audience who will follow you, come what may, it really annoys a lot of people and it annoys a lot of so-called critics. So they dig into you further and more so than they would otherwise." In the song Mozza reminds music critics how dependent they are on him, and gives advice to those who have nothing better to do than criticise his work, "There is so much destruction all over the world and all you can do is complain about me." The track's enormous drums and wall of raw guitars provide an appropriate backdrop to his angry vocal.

Track 6 - 'When Last I Spoke to Carol'

The sixth track on the album seems strangely incongruous. 'When Last I Spoke to Carol' has a carnival-like "mariachi" feel to it and is perhaps included to satisfy Morrissey's ever-growing South American fan base.

Track 7 - 'That's How People Grow Up'

Morrissey returns to his obsession with love and its pitfalls in 'That's How People Grow Up.' His tongue-in-cheek lyrics mock our constant desire to be loved; and give us one of the most memorable lines in the album, "I was driving my car. I crashed and broke my spine. So yes there are things worse in life, than never being someone's sweetie!"

Track 8 - 'One Day Goodbye Will be Farewell'

Morrissey has recently admitted that he is "obsessed with the brevity of life and how you use it...what you do with your time." In 'One Day Goodbye Will be Farewell' he examines this very subject; ruminating upon the unpredictable length of human mortality. The song mixes manic percussion with soaring synthesizers, and in the middle-eight mariachi trumpets are thrown in for good measure!

Track 9 - 'It's Not Your Birthday Anymore'

Morrissey explores the gap between "syrupy sentimental" affection and spontaneous physical love in 'It's Not Your Birthday Anymore.' What the track lacks in content - it certainly makes up for in volume!

Track 10 - 'You Were Good in Your Time'

The album changes gear with 'You Were Good in Your Time' and almost grinds to a halt. Morrissey takes us to a death bed and then (for what seems like ages) the strange "white noise" sounds that lie beyond...

Tracks 11 & 12 - 'Sorry Doesn't Help' & 'I'm Okay by Myself'

Even though the tempo picks up again for the final two tracks on the album, its momentum doesn't really return. 'Sorry Doesn't Help' features loads of melancholic guitar, whimsical strings and rock drums. Like 'Sorry Doesn't Help,' the topic covered by 'I'm Okay by Myself' needs no additional explanation. Neither songs are particularly 'deep.'

Whilst I don't think that 'Years of Refusal' is Morrissey's strongest work to date, I must admit that there are some truly stunning tracks on the album; 'Mama Lay Softly on the Riverbed' and 'I'm Throwing My Arms Around Paris' spring immediately to mind. As he approaches his half-century it is clear that the Mozzfather can still produce the goods. Long may his reign continue...

(Price: £ 8.98 at Amazon.co.uk)

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(Review is also available on Dooyoo.) 

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