This record is puzzling. It's backwards. It has more than enough necessary ingredients to be good -- really good -- and its placement among Morrissey's body of work (including Smiths records) suggests that it ought to be on the upswing of some steadily oscillating Moz-quality-meter I've come to discover as a result of my own demented, homespun logic. Unless you really enjoy a good, tepid rehashing of former greatness from time to time (don't be shy!), you might want to skip about half of this LP.
A flagrant misuse of some still-strong windpipes and guest spots plagues Ringleader of the Tormentors, Morrissey's eighth solo LP, released just two years after relative comeback album You Are the Quarry. The Italian children's choir present on the single-worthy "The Youngest Was the Most Loved" and buried under the filler-rubble of "The Father Who Must Be Killed" is reminiscent of the screaming, whining chorus at the end of Smiths' single "Panic." The voices ought to have been used elsewhere to a more ethereal quality, as children's choirs can be really, effectively creepy when they actually sing. Ennio Morricone's arrangements on the delicate "Dear God Please Help Me" are certainly beautiful, but have been reduced to a mere hush. A definite standout track, though, regardless of this shortcoming. The Morrissey-pretty, perfect-sounding "On the Streets I Ran" kicks off a block of the record's strongest material, which arrives all too late with its last four songs.
All in all, about half a dozen small gems. Missing from this album are any hint of former rockabilly underpinnings and those biting turns-of-phrase. I'm not sure what to make of Morrissey's bizarre newfound apparent honesty. Given my fondness for ridiculous Morrissey-related formulas, I like to think that in a perfect world, the bombastic frankness present in the lyrics would be exchanged with the subtlety expressed in the compositions, but sometimes the world can make Morrissey puke, too.
