Cheers to Lisa Verrico for printing a favourable review. After Harris and Peschek had had their way I had almost given up on the thought of seeing any more favourable reviews. Good stuff.

Settling scores
By Lisa Verrico
Big mouth strikes again - Morrissey's comeback record shows that he's back with a vengeance

MORRISSEY
You are the Quarry (Attack/Sanctuary) 4 Stars

THE BEST WAY for an established pop star to deal with an indifferent public is to disappear for a few years. Morrissey's new album is steeped in seven years of stewing in LA, laced with laughter (at the people who put him down, the country that took him in and the Morrissey myth) and packed with purpose.
The former Smiths singer would like us to believe that he's been doing fine without us, thank you. But, oh, in case anyone remembers him, here are some songs he recorded earlier. Good? No, they're great.
When he flounced off to America, his stock was at a critical low. There were unfounded accusations of racism, poor reviews for his solo album Maladjusted, and the loss of a court case over royalties. The louder Morrissey moaned, the happier we were to see the back of him.
For five years after Maladjusted Morrissey survived on his solo success in the States, which outstripped anything the Smiths had achieved there. In 2002, there was an Albert Hall gig to showcase what sounded like good new material and, last autumn, a Channel 4 documentary, The Importance of Being Morrissey. He let us into his LA lifestyle, showed us he hadn't sold out by befriending celebrities, took us to meet his Mexican fans (go figure) and drove around in the sunshine, smiling.
He didn't miss Britain, he insisted, although he scattered clues suggesting he might come home, if we were nice enough. By the end of the programme we realised that we missed having a pop star who lived like a student who spends all his grant on something silly in the first week of term. So the timing is right for a Morrissey revival and for old fans You are the Quarry is a treat. Thanks to his new producer Jerry Finn (best known for work with punk-pop bands Blink 182 and Green Day), the singer's on/off problem of music that lags behind his lyrics has been addressed.
There are drum loops and keyboards, synthesized strings and rock guitars. It's a modern sound that's not trying too hard to be trendy, but doesn't mind stepping back in time when it's called for. I Like You starts with acid-house-style squiggles, there's a striking flute solo on the lovely I'm Not Sorry and proper rock guitars on The World is Full of Crashing Bores, a song that pours spite on modern life.
Morrissey's vocals are as graceful as ever, even when he's cramming lines into spaces that should be too small. Only he could make sound eloquent a statement as blunt as "You know where you can shove your hamburger", from America is Not the World.
The song is a sharp, if at times overbearing, letter to his new homeland, but like most of the songs it's not what it seems. "America, I love you," he repeats at the end, as though he's found a friend with as many faults as he has.
Elsewhere, lyrically, Morrissey returns to England to take "tea that tastes of the Thames" on the mournful, piano-backed Come Back to Camden; rails at the people who called him racist on the singalong, synth-accompanied single Irish Blood, English Heart ("I've been dreaming of a time when to be English is not to be painful/ To be standing by the flag not feeling shameful"); has a dig at religion on I Have Forgiven Jesus; revels in self-pity on the funnier-than-it-sounds How Could Anybody Possibly Know How I Feel? and at his own insecurities on Let Me Kiss You.
There are a few fillers, but which ones you decide they are probably depends on what you want from Morrissey these days: a taste of Smiths, back to Vauxhall & I, a more adventurous new direction.
They're all in there, but will they attract a new generation of fans? The myth may be more than the music, but since Morrissey's stock is so high now, expect a few younger fans, and lots of old students, to flock to his new fan club.