When Morrissey released "Maladjusted" (1997), the shockwaves of Cobain's death were still stormy, Oasis were the greatest band in the world, nu-metal hadn't exploded yet and Enimem was nothing but a white kid rapping in black Detroit. The album was, at best, ignored and, at worst, slandered. The former Smiths singer became disposable. He had been bathing in the limelight too long, had made too many enemies, especially amongst the powerful English press. And Steven Patrick presented himself in a way that went against all that his hero Oscar Wilde always fought against: indifference. Irrelevant songs, uninspired vocalizations. Nothing new on the provocation front. Morrissey hibernated in Los Angeles.

Seven years passed without him releasing a single note, despite selling out shows. It seemed the world had obliterated him. However, the wheel of fortune never stops turning, and the same world that loved Morrissey in the 80's will be ready to listen to him again. The indefinable quality of what they call "Englishness" is back, by the hands of bands like The Libertines, proud of their Albion. The decadent Romanticism, the asexual loneliness, the irony and the double meaning as ways of observing the atmosphere - all singularities of the man from Manchester - all of it is in fashion again. And Morrissey is back.

Sensing his chance, he leaves reclusion and goes to lengths in promoting his new album "You Are The Quarry" - something like, "you are the hunted". And the record is worth the effort. In one swoop, it's typical Morrissey - and 21st century Morrissey at that. His delicious word verve is still there, in the inventive and wise choice of the best adjective in each situation, in the definitive sarcastic note with which he paints the song titles ("I Have Forgiven Jesus", "All The Lazy Dykes", "The World Is Full Of Crashing Bores"?). And, now and always, the voice, with the wisdom of the 40's and renovated energy, like a vocal Dorian Gray, in the spires of "Hatful of Hollow" (1984). Assisted by his usual band (Alain Whyte on guitar and song writing) and producer Jerry Finn, he achieved an organic, natural and whole sound, where the instrumental part - solely abandoning the classic trilogy bass-drums-guitars for brief keyboard, rhythm box and string incursions - is not, as in "Maladjusted", a mere bed for his voice. In the opening "America Is Not The World" - a lovely "midtempo" supported by keyboards - Morrissey sways languidly between the extremes of his adopted country ("Where the president is never black, female or gay", "But I love you"). The great finale, "You Know I Couldn't Last" - a classic ballad, with its peaks and valleys defined by piano chords - is a devastating retort to the British justice system and record industry machine ("The critics can break you, and willingly they make you"), having lost the court case to his former Smiths companions. In between, a handful of great songs (the "pseudo-chanson" "All The Lazy Dykes", the power pop glam of "The First Of The Gang To Die") which are Steven Patrick's reply to those who labelled him irrelevant. A right step in the search of beauty and glamour.

MORRISSEY
You Are The Quarry
Attack/Sanctuary; distri. SomLivre
8/10