MORRISSEY: “Vauxhall And I” (His Master’s Voice)

THE LOVE-HATE relationship (with the emphasis, of late, placed firmly on the latter) between Morrissey and the British music press, is a well-documented affair which has been exhaustively played out in the pages of the Rock weeklies.

While the 1991 album Kill Uncle was, admittedly, flawed, it was more Langer and Winstanley’s wishy-washy production which was to blame. Nevertheless, some saw it as the culmination of Morrissey’s artistic decline: proof, if proof was needed, that he had ceased to matter amidst the happy haze of the great Baggy explosion.

The attempt to critically kill off the artist by simply announcing his death backfired with the release of that gem of a comeback Your Arsenal. Consequently, the hacks were forced to rethink their strategy, changing the “Morrissey-is-irrelevant” catchcry to the more potent “Morrissey-is-dangerous.”

In what was no less than a journalistic coup d’état, the attempted assassination of Morrissey’s reputation seemed to be motivated less by outraged political sensibilities than by a general feeling that Morrissey’s continued domination of British Rock was exerting an unhealthy stifling influence on their attempts to forge fresh musical movements – which is, after all, the hack’s raison d’être.

With the demise of the Madchester scene, it was decided that the best way to defeat the enemy(!) was to sing his song, and so Suede were unveiled as the pretenders to the throne but they’re just hot heir compared to this latest offering from the charming Manc himself.

Indeed, Vauxhall And I is an assured masterpiece from beginning to end, which really should settle the whole contest. It is certainly the closest yet Morrissey has got to recreating the magic of The Smiths. The wah-wah wail of ‘Billy Bud’ puts one in mind of ‘The Queen Is Dead’ while ‘Hold Onto Your Friends’ has a tune which takes up where ‘Pretty Girls Make Graves’ left off. The riff on the forthcoming single ‘The More You Ignore Me’ retrieves from Suede what they had previously stole themselves.

With an augmented band line-up and through Steve Lillywhite’s competent production, the album provides the perfect musical complement to the Moz vox – never too obtrusive, yet still strong on rhythm and melody.

Lyrically, the songs display, yet again, Morrissey’s unique ability to articulate in a phrase or sentence that dark, hidden side of ourselves which haunts us, and from which we are permanently trying to escape. This is always done, though, with a warmth and a compassion which transforms the most painful dissection into the most comforting display of solidarity: “I took my job application into town/Did you hear they turned me down?” (‘Billy Bud).

As always, it is this ability to laugh in the face of the most depressing aspects of existence which allows us to overcome them, as in ‘Why Don’t You Find Out For Yourself’ where Morrissey declares: “I’ve been stabbed in the back/So many many times/I don’t have any skin/But that’s just the way it goes.”

Morrissey is one of the few song-writers who can successfully negotiate that fine line between self-pity and arrogant misanthropy. The key lies in his delivery his perfect timing of lines, pregnant with suggestion, which just as you experience a broad internal smile, suddenly burst out and hit you where it hurts – ‘Lifeguard Sleeping’ (which boasts an astonishing vocal performance from the Moz): “The sky became mad with stars/As an outstretched arm slowly disappears/ . . . Hooray! Hooray!/Don’t worry there’ll be no fuss/She was nobody’s nothing.”

By the time we get to the closing track ‘Speedway’, there is almost no need for Morrissey to give his customary two-finger salute to his detractors: “You won’t rest until the hearse/That becomes me, finally takes me/You won’t smile until my loving mouth/Is shut good and proper . . . forever.”

The point is that if Vauxhall And I doesn’t silence his critics, then nothing will.

• Nick Kelly