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A review of YATQ from Malaysian publication "The Star Online":
You are the Quarry
Artist: MORRISSEY
(Attack/InterGlobal Music)
Reviewer: MARTIN VENGADESAN
I ALWAYS knew that the Smiths were a good band, but it was only about a year ago that I got my hands on (what is surely their best album) The Queen is Dead, and truly fell in love with them. On the other hand, I am not so unequivocal about the solo career of erstwhile lead singer and lyrical genius Morrissey. Every album from 1988’s Viva Hate to 1997’s Maladjusted has something to recommend it and yet the songs haven’t stuck with me in the same way that Panic, Cemetery Gates and Shoplifters of the World Unite have.
Yet, as soon as the first song America is Not the World kicks in and Morrissey teased me with “America, the land of the free in a just and truthful way, where the President is never black, female or gay” I knew where I was. The sardonic, honest, melancholic world of Morrissey is a familiar one. Perhaps too familiar, I thought. When I saw titles like
The World is Full of Crashing Bores and How Can Anybody Possibly Know How I Feel?, I thought I’d heard this sort of thing so often before that even I could write a Morrissey-style lyric. But of course, I can’t.
There is only one Morrissey, and while his collaborators Alain Whyte and Boz Boorer will always be cursed by the shadow of Johnny Marr, the man is still capable of adding to his catalogue of great tunes. I Have Forgiven Jesus really broke my heart, and there’re not many songwriters around who can still do that.
I can’t say that Morrissey’s back, because it’s more like he’s never been away. I sometimes think I’d like to go through his solo albums with a fine-toothed comb and separate the gems from the also-rans, but you know when I ran through this album a second time, I couldn’t remember which songs I hadn’t liked.
Link to Review
You are the Quarry
Artist: MORRISSEY
(Attack/InterGlobal Music)
Reviewer: MARTIN VENGADESAN
I ALWAYS knew that the Smiths were a good band, but it was only about a year ago that I got my hands on (what is surely their best album) The Queen is Dead, and truly fell in love with them. On the other hand, I am not so unequivocal about the solo career of erstwhile lead singer and lyrical genius Morrissey. Every album from 1988’s Viva Hate to 1997’s Maladjusted has something to recommend it and yet the songs haven’t stuck with me in the same way that Panic, Cemetery Gates and Shoplifters of the World Unite have.
Yet, as soon as the first song America is Not the World kicks in and Morrissey teased me with “America, the land of the free in a just and truthful way, where the President is never black, female or gay” I knew where I was. The sardonic, honest, melancholic world of Morrissey is a familiar one. Perhaps too familiar, I thought. When I saw titles like
The World is Full of Crashing Bores and How Can Anybody Possibly Know How I Feel?, I thought I’d heard this sort of thing so often before that even I could write a Morrissey-style lyric. But of course, I can’t.
There is only one Morrissey, and while his collaborators Alain Whyte and Boz Boorer will always be cursed by the shadow of Johnny Marr, the man is still capable of adding to his catalogue of great tunes. I Have Forgiven Jesus really broke my heart, and there’re not many songwriters around who can still do that.
I can’t say that Morrissey’s back, because it’s more like he’s never been away. I sometimes think I’d like to go through his solo albums with a fine-toothed comb and separate the gems from the also-rans, but you know when I ran through this album a second time, I couldn’t remember which songs I hadn’t liked.
Link to Review
