Impressions of Ringleader of the Tormentors after the listening party in Stockholm, January 12th 2006.

Sorry about all the grammatical errors and all that stuff, but I’m on a real buzz right now and English isn’t my first language anyway so.... But I thought that this could be interesting for quite a few people out there.

So. Finally. The Big Day came. After a sleepless night 15-odd of us (journalists, pop stars and well known die hard fans of the Moz) finally got to sit in the office of SonyBMG Sweden for a listening session of Ringleader.

After a few words from the man from Sanctuary UK about how Sweden is one of Morrissey's best countries they actually put the record into the stereo. Here is my track by track thoughts of it:

01. I Will See You In Far-Off Places.

Middle-eastern strings – and metal! Wtf is this really Morrissey?!?!

Think America is not the world meets a really pissed of System of a Down in a crowdy market in Beirut. Sort of.

The track is rock hard – but with a really passionate vocal from Morrissey.

“The heart knows why I grieve, and yes – one day I will close my eyes forever”.

He slags off the US involvement in the Middle East really heavy and it’s easy to see this as a relly pissed of sister song to America from Quarry. With the Marshall amps turned up to 11.

Without a doubt the hardest and heaviest track The Moz has ever released.

02. Dear God Please Help Me

His singing is fantastic on this one! It starts off really smoothly with just an organ and an acoustic guitar. The Moz croons “and I’m so very tired of doing the right thing”.

And lyric wise.... God Damn – Mozzer got laid!!

“then he notions to me with his hand on my knee – Dear God, did this kind of thing ever happen to you?”

Later on he sings about how he spreads this guy’s legs and lies with his own right in between. Morrissey finally pulled!!

A really atmospheric track with beautiful strings and the line that really blew me away was “There are explosive kegs between my legs – Dear God please help me!”.

03. You Have Killed Me

The first uptempo track.

A straight on, poppy track with a chorus that just steams of hit potential! An obvious choice for a first single.

“As i live and breathe – You have killed me”

Opens with the line: “Passolini is me” wich he later in the song changes to “Visconti is me”. Strange but quite funny.

He ends it with a crooning “There is no point in saying this again – but I forgive you, I forgive you”.

04. The Youngest Was The Most Loved

The uptempo continues. Could very well be a future single – the chorus once again is really straight to the point, no fuss pop.

In the chorus Moz sings something like “There is no such thing in life as ‘normal’” backed by a chilrens choir. He yoddels quite a bit towards the end kind of in the same way as in the end of Rubber Ring. The track closes abruptly with some distorted strings.

05. In The Future When All’s Well

Starts with a western-movie sort of guitar riff. A midtempo track and Morrissey sings “Living longer than I intended – something must have gone right”.

A nice piano in the background and beautiful “aaaaaah”-backing vocals from the band. A straight on pop track with quite a bit of rock nerve to it. Jesse Tobias even pulls of a distorted guitar solo with lots of feedback towards the end!

06. The Father Who Must Be Killed

Starts with a drum intro. Visconti has added almost a gravelike echo effect to Mozzer's voice. Feels a bit like a b-side, actually. Quite riff heavy towards the chorus and the lyrics are relly straight on and seem a bit... forced and sometimes quite silly. Melody wise the track never really happens and it ends with the drummer having quite a go at the old gong. The low point of the album in my opinion.

07. Life Is A Pigsty

The masterpiece!!!

Starts off with a real heavy rain effect and thunder in the background. Really dramatic. Gets a bit uptempo towards the chorus and Morrissey sings at one point “It’s the same old SOS but with brand new broken fortunes”.

The songs has a kind of acoustic refrain in the same vein as “The edges are no longer parallel” but with quite heavy drums and rain.

The Moz singing on this is... astonishing. He croons, the falsetto is just perfect and the track really sent chills down my spine.

“Every second of my life I live only for you”, he croons and it’s hard to keep the tears away.

A very dramatic and typical Visconti production and maybe a career best from Morrissey.

Think big. Think Widescreen. Think drama.

A brave, brave track in all it’s seven and a half minutes majesty.

08. I’ll Never Be Anybody’s Hero Now

A midtempo track kind of in the same vein as Crashing Bores sounded on the 2002 tour (before the studio version went all ballady).

“I’ll never be anybody’s hero now, they who should love me walk right through me”.

The singing is marvellous on this one! A bit of falsetto, a bit of Sinatra croon. Morrissey does his best singing ever on this album actually!

“I am a ghost / And as far as I know / I haven’t even died” is a stand out lyric line.

The chorus is a killer – I was just beaming in my seat because it's so darn good!

“I’ll never be anybody’s hero now – it only hurts because it’s true”.

09. On The Streets I Ran

Starts off quite fumbling but finds it’s way into a nice poppy verse. A fantastic track – quite possibly a single in my book!

Straight on, lightly distorted rock/pop kind of in the same vein as Reader Meet Author. Morrissey sings about how he “turned sickness into popular song” only to change his mind in the last verse where he “turned sickness into unpopular song”. Haha!

The lyrics are amazingly funny. He has a go at the people of Pittsburgh and sings at some stage “if you don’t leave you will kill / or be killed – which isn’t very nice”.

“Take anyone – take the people of Pittsburgh, PA – just spare me”.

10. To Me You Are A Work Of Art

A good midtempo track. Sound a bit Oasis actually. The vocal melody seemed kind of tricky at first but his singing here is just fantastic! Nice strings and a really catchy chorus.

“To me you are a work of art / And I’d give you my heart / That’s if I had one”. Could very well work as a single.

11. I Just Want To See The Boy Happy

“Let’s face it – soon I will be dead” sings Morrissey on this really great pop tune. Sounds very much early seventies Bowie meets Oasis “Some Might Say”. Has “single” stamped all over it’s forehead. A great song!

12. At Last I Am Born

Oh dear, the drama isn’t quite over yet. A string heavy, Morricone sounding weird track with some marching band kind of drumming in it. Very peculiar indeed. Has quite a bit of talked lyrics and feels a bit too much like a piece of radio theatre for my taste. Think “Sorrow will come in the end” meets “You know I couldn’t last”. The children are back, singing in the background and Moz croons “I was once a mess because of guilt of the flesh”.

Although we only got to hear it once (and the single twice) it made me feel rally good. Make no mistake about it though: this IS a difficult album and I’m quite sure it will divide the fanbase quite a bit.

As after Vauxhall – a very likeable and popular album – he followed up with the too strange for some people Southpaw Grammar.

I feel as if he’s doing quite the same thing again – following up Quarry with a strange, big, dramatic and often quite strangley sounding Ringleader. It has it’s obvious singles, but it’s a daring, risk taking epic sounding sort of record and I’m sure he will recive quite a lot of flak for it. And quite possibly lose quite a few of the festival going, First of the gang to die-liking younger audience that he gained with Quarry. For this is a dark, dramatic and quite difficult record to get ones head around. It feels very much as a grower, actually. It will take quite a few listens before it “sits” in once heart and mind.

We never got any info on which track was written by whom (and we had to leave the printed out lyric sheets in the room as we left) but I’d say that Jesse Tobias's songwriting isn’t that different from say Alain Whyte's. Maybe it’s a bit poopier (but at the same time a bit harder) but the songs still very much feel as Morrissey songs. So no dramatic departure there.

The guy from Sanctuary also said that a video for “Killed” is being shot in Rome right about now and that the tour dates are being worked on as of now. He couldn’t confirm anything though.

He also said that they have b-side to at least three singles, and it hasn’t really been decided which songs are to be released as singles, but he thought that The Youngest Was The Most Loved and In The Future When All’s Well were good candidates to be picked as singles. “But then again, you never really know with Morrissey”, he smiled.

Too right.

/ Martin Söderström, Stockholm, Sweden.