I'm not 'on the ball' when it comes to Morrissey releases. I didn't get the singles, haven't checked out the live tracks, so this is like 12 new tunes to me. I listened to it last night for the first time, in the early hours.
It's a lot better than I expected, but I didn't expect too much because I found Ringleader very disappointing, (though I remember liking it when it came out, strange that). But this was after I found You Are The Quarry very good, but then that was after I'd pretty much lost interest in Morrissey after the 'lean years' . . (Southpaw, I'm afraid, was a last straw, funny though, because I can listen to it today and enjoy it).
What I'm trying to say, in my garbled way, is very often, one's appreciation of these albums is joined at the hip with one's expectations. I bought Quarry on a whim thinking 'I wonder what he's like these days', (I'm an older fan I suppose, one of the first concerts I saw was the Smiths on the Queen Is Dead tour).
I'm on the third listen this morning, I won't vote yet, but it seems to me to be as strong as Your Arsenal, and much of the 'feel' is the same. Rocky but with epic ballads, a bit punky and all the better for it! (sans the T-Rex vibe of course!).
Lyrically it's a bit samey for me. These days you seem to get similar themes, 'no-one will ever love me', 'I'm an emotional outcast', 'judges are evil'. . you know. But there's still enough in there to keep me interested and entertained. If I'm being very picky I'd want him to talk about other people's lives a bit more. And be more specific, I like to hear about leather elbows on a tweed coat, those little details and observations. . but I'm being finicky.
The tunes on Refusal have more 'hooks' than we've been used to of late. I think the general public will like it a lot.
He's still one of our best pop stars in my book. He's got interity, he stands for what he believes in (not that I agree with everything), and he understands his back catalouge so when he does the older songs, they are as close to the originals as possible. I appreciate that, and have every time I've seen him. He wo't be advertising butter anytime soon, and is reasuringly absent from all the charity/royal performance/sub-live aid type package shows. You'll not find a single cover version on any of his regular albums, and this has been true since day one with the Smiths. So we can expect the odd clunker can't we? (I thought the Father Who Must Be Killed was just plain torture! heh heh!)
He's his own world and that's how I like it.
On my fourth listen now. I'm going to enjoy this one a lot, and I'll be buying it on the first day of release. I can imagine he's being quite honest when he says this is his 'strongest'. The tunes are evolving now, yea, it's good.