Album Review: Morrissey, Make-Up Is A Lie

On his 14th solo record, Morrissey’s voice sounds better than ever; rich, soulful and lived-in. He’s still beating some familiar thematic drums, championing freedom of speech on ‘You're Right, It's Time’ and highlighting the trappings of fame on ‘The Monsters Of Pig Alley’, while ‘Kerching Kerching’ has him listing off his neuroses and regrets (“I remember a small boy in a small town with a small dog and a shy smile, and I wonder what went wrong”). He brings his regrets out for another trip around the block on the nostalgia-fest of ‘Many Icebergs Ago’.

‘Boulevard’ is a torch song par excellence, delivered with the panache that only Morrissey can bring, while ‘Zoom Zoom The Little Boy’ has a childlike chorus that’s at odds with his miserabilist persona. ‘The Night Pop Dropped’ is possibly about the loss of Bowie, while ‘Lester Bangs’, one of the best things here, is his ode to the legendary gonzo music scribe: “Three thousand miles away, this nerd leans on your words.”

‘Notre Dame’, his synth-driven paean to the Parisian cathedral, sounds like a Pet Shop Boys track slowed down, while his cover of Roxy Music’s ‘Amazona’ is downright weird. It begins life as a mid-paced croonfest, before breaking into a dub bassline and searing guitar solo, then picks up the pace into a punky wigout for about 40 seconds, before circling back to the middle of the road again. ‘Headache’ is equally strange; all saccharine production, over which he half whispers, “With this headache, I thee wed and thus pronounce you dead”.

The arrangements are a little safe and a few of the songs (including the title track) are Mozza-by-numbers, but given his tribulations of late, Make-Up Is A Lie is far better than some of us feared.

7/10