"Low in High School" reviewed and rated song by song

We, French, have to make effort to speak your language. For once in your life, you can do it too or just click on translate (which is what i recommend to you)
 
We, French, have to make effort to speak your language. For once in your life, you can do it too or just click on translate (which is what i recommend to you)

Well, that's real goddamn selfish of you, isn't it?
 
English version

Christmas is early. Under the cactus, a "best-of" of thorny warnings against the vices of our congeners, against the recurring evils of our society, a concentrate of a pessimistic vision of our world heckled, a pamphlet where sex, the oil and rock n'roll are summoned. A Morrissey album is always an event. Sometimes it's a disappointment, often it can also find its account, it is largely the case today and I will try to explain why. The site Suississimo began to exist thanks to the singer of the Smiths who granted us several times an interview in writing. It is therefore natural that we will continue to follow the work of one of the best songwriters of the 20th and 21st centuries.

The album is entitled "Low in High School". With this label, Morrissey is not in the novelty, education ("The Headmaster Ritual", "Stairecase at the University" ...) is one of the recurring themes used by the singer. The album contains 12 titles and could end up alone under the tree, lack of gift packages enough complacent to keep him company. In "Low in High School", Morrissey takes out the knives and wags in the wounds of our world with nonchalance, the theme of the exit, the exclusion, the jealousy, the domination of the powerful ones, the homesickness, the racism, the big mouths fallen during the recent revolutions ... So nothing new for the Moz under the sun of Mexico? No, on the contrary, the singer projects his desires of music with a choice of well felt productions and a selection of punchlines which do not take care of or spare any gravedigger of our year 2017. There is dissent in the pieces of « Low in High School ", a desire to finish with the pop format.

We hear it, and it's new, Morrissey dares to stand out from what is expected of him, even to rush some texts yet successful by placing them on mediocre musical compositions. Politically, he takes the liberty of bashing basic anti-Zionism - and there is no mention of anti-Semitism there, but of the desire of some Jews to find a land where ancestors lived from the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. He does not care enough about potential recriminations that may come from the pro-Palestinian community that neither understands nor accepts Israel's domination, helped by the United States in Gaza or the occupied West Bank territories. It is a desired Israel that is described by a particularly sliced Morrissey.

We can not help but see in the discography of the singer an attraction for geopolitics that was lacking the first years of his solo career. The turn took place with "You Are The Quarry", and the song "America Is Not The World". In his latest album, the singer based in Switzerland, gives us a very personal geopolitics course, left or rather outside the classic spectrum of political game. The refusal of the elites however places more on the side of Mélenchon and his "dégagisme" affirmed or Bernie Sanders, the last two leaders to have animated in France or the United States the fronde widely anti-Wall Street, anti-establishment when presidential elections of both countries. But the sympathies displayed by the Mancunian for the UKIP party are precisely about provoking a debate about what the anti-royalist artist has become on the bottom, a former labor activist attracted by the gilding of showbiz, roughly a paradox traveling 1 meter 80 and annoying by throwing disorder on the people of the left who supported him until today. Through his statements, the socially open man he was at the time of the Smiths, has radically closed. Some will speak of bitterness, others of derailment. I personally think it's a temptation to provoke that has never been so strong.

Musically Since Morrissey unleashed the lasso of his musicians, his two musicians Gustavo Manzur and Mando Lopez Hispanic, Hispanic footsteps are more numerous. Yet "Low in High School" casts a pale light onto the digital walkman, with all-powerful riffs, echoing songs from "Your Arsenal" as "Glamorous Glue" or the stormy riffs of "Southpaw Grammar" or of "Years Of Refusal". Morrissey throws his energy into a rock and melodious deluge from the outset as if to mark his territory. The rabid doberman is hungry to say and describe, accentuating with the help of Joe Chiccarelli the instrumental nuances and vocal flashes alternately on this imperfect but interesting album for this reason. Morrissey has never been a regular artist in his solo career but it is clear that "Low in High School" is among the top 5 albums for me, the ranking is as follows (1) Your Arsenal, (2) Ringleader of the Tormentors, (3) Vauxhall & I, (4) Low in High School, (5) Viva Hate.


"My Love, I'do Anything For You" 4/5 : an entry in the subject marked by strident pachydermic humanoid trumpets, we applaud all four paws. Morrissey walks on this trumpet hymn proudly placed in the front row. Good material. The sound of this album debuts the role of musical director Boz Boorer and producer Joe Chiccarelli in the center of operations, we enjoy the fusion of pop and rock genres in what is more classic.The sound effects of the production bring this shift that we will find several times on the album. The two chief sound designers designated for the last two albums "World Peace is None of Your Business" and "Low in High School" release the horses with guitars in the form of knight spears, inflamed, brilliantly worked. We find the Morrissey bravache of the 2000s with the albums "You are the Quarry" or "Ringleader of the Tormentors", a kind of confidence in the fight, a morgue, an anticipation to satisfy the nostalgic of a Moz to the word released and liberal, who rather turned eurosceptic and nationalist (see his amazing references at a concert for BBC 6 Music in Maida Vale).

"I Wish You Lonely" 3/5: rather repetitive piece. Morrissey sinks into the ease of a ritournelle already seen. It is a regret to see the author place this composition as early in the arrangement but not serious. The haunting side of the song "I Wish You Lonely" reinforces the narrator's fatigue effect of a global socio-political environment that has not changed for years, for centuries. Guitars well forward, groans following the chorus.Morrissey just "trasher" the idiots who gave their life ... the finger on the seam of the pants. Martial, enraged will not calm down throughout his twelve songs. That's what was expected of him.

"Jacky's Only Happy When She's Up On The Stage" 3/5: An introduction reminiscent of the "Father Who Must Be Killed" intro. Everyone is going to the exit repeats the singer at the end of the song, obvious reference to Brexit? Without a doubt.Venezuelans leaving their country in ruins economically. But who is this lady only happy once on stage? A feminine avatar of Morrissey? Maybe or not, it's not the most important. This second single that already invades social networks with this clip with lyrics scrolls this question: is there still in Morrissey wishes to keep a place in the Hall of Fame British pop authors orchestrated 1990/2000 in the manner Manic Street Preachers or Elbow? We are seriously asking ourselves the question. Besides the anachronism of the proposal with this single, it is for me not the best bill of Morrissey in this eleventh album. We leave with a mixed feeling. Special mention to the voices of children compiled in outro, an artifice already tried on "The Youngest Was the Most Loved" ten years ago.

"Home is a Question Mark" 5/5: "My house is a question mark, a place I have not been able to keep ..." sings Morrissey. An autobiographical question, no doubt when we know the ease of the gentleman not to stay too long in the same place since he started a solo career (USA, Ireland, Italy and Switzerland are some of the country where he lives outside England). A song full and generous, pictured with humor ... "put your legs around my head to greet me if I ever get to ask me," he concludes. I salute the very successful production to serve such clever words in metaphor and irony, with jingle bells of an imaginary Santa Claus in recurring jingle.

 
"Spent the Day in Bed" 5/5: Probably Morrissey's best single since "I Want To See The Happy Boy". Without doubt also the most affirmed pop song of the album, allowing the singer to play match with big "chart-music" like Guy Chambers or Mort Schuman. A rather simple melody, words that speak to everyone and that send us back to an anxious daily reality, made harassing work carried the fear of getting fired. We imagine the radio programmers borrowed from the idea of passing this anti-media single and not very ironic for once. But the single was powerful, especially in England and Scotland. To see the complete chronicle of this first single, go here.



"I Bury the Living" (4/5): 7 minutes 25 with a long intro electrorock agonizing. The magma sound serves a song about the soldiers who play the mortal game of the powerful. Morrissey places here his little respect for the subservient of all nations. We think of the US Army, able to land on fake evidence in Iraq to get bogged down dramatically, without the country finds fault almost fifteen years later when voting for a "go-to-war" notorious or an illuminated real estate world. The questioning is quite relevant, not sure that the military profession are found in this rather cruel description.The end of the song offers a fun outing on clear guitar sounds, "it's funny how the world stays as it is despite the loss of our John." The perilous "la-la-la" that prolongs this sentence reinforces the discomfort of having to point out the responsibility of those who have not chosen to object conscientiously, to desert or to place the professional army in a cupboard with armored door.

"In Your Lap" (4/5): In a simple phrase, Morrissey recounts that the governments of Arab countries waltzed, but that the narrator's will is to finish the head on the thighs of the partner. Sexually explicit, the songs are all the more interesting melodically. One appreciates the slight melancholy of the piece, with the addition of sonic devices, long and sweet percussion waves, distant voices merged in the echo of the riff of a guitar.Beautiful interpretation and certainly one of the most disturbing compositions of "Low in High School". The theme of anti-state protest is back in force once again, to believe that it is an obsession. In any case, it will be understood that the news rolled in the "spent the Day in Bed" is fertile ground for Morrissey's songwriting.

"The Girl From Tel-Aviv Who Would not Kneel" 5/5: A piece whose musical color is somewhere between bolero and tango, taking a step aside towards a quasi-Arabian music towards the end. The song itself is a marvel of assemblage of influences.Morrissey gives the keys of the compo to an inspired Gustavo Manzur, with diatonic accordion to raise the whole thing. Tel-Aviv's daughter is actually a resistant to local machismo, a refuznik of Hebrew paternalism. We are in a rather enjoyable description of the liberation of women, in poetic anti-weistism. Morrissey, it's new, leaves Mexico or Scandinavia, two of his favorite venues to honor a very politically troubled part of the globe, placing a rather crude and simplistic analysis on fertile oil lands ... If it was also simple as that, this song could be taught in college to raise the level of history and geo lessons ... or not.


"All The Young People Must Fall In Love" 2/5: a title to be placed in the category of harmless pieces. The attempt to open the writing to a mix talk / sing pass moderately.No ecstatic turnie here, no text wrapping , we will pass on this piece of music hardly acceptable in such a set. Too bad but it perfectly fulfills its role of transition title. It should be noted that the least sharp pieces of the album are signed by the most faithful collaborator of Morrissey since 1991, the guitarist Boz Boorer. Also note that the second guitarist Jesse Tobias has been less busy than usual on "Low in High School".One could almost speak of wear for the ephemeral guitarist of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and for the guitarist who secured the rockab 'energy and Morrissey garage for the tour "Kill Unkle" and the very successful "Your Arsenal".
"When You Open Your Legs" 5/5: Here is a colorful proposal where the crooner flirts with the Latin tenor style that you could have met in Parisian hot nights (Luis Mariano, come out of this body!) To a distant time where the pleasure of climbing high in the highs is not considered homoerotic. However, Morrissey remains in a baritone register but does not skimp on the grandiloquent, even decadent style effects worthy of the greatest eccentricities of the Maels of the Sparks. Morrissey adds a touch of extra lightness with hisses, rather funny here. We feel the urge to respond to any form of current fashion in the composition. The adopted Swiss plays here a score reminiscent of another so much appreciated, in the 80s, at the time of the Smiths on singles as "Vicar in a Tutu" or "Girlfriend in a Coma". This art of narrating an extravagant story, hilarious or horrible with this inspired lightness is Morrissey 100% authentic and approved quality control.

"Who Will Protect Us From The Police?" 1/5 T-shirt proudly worn by musicians Boz Boorer, Jesse Tobias, Mando Lopez, Gustavo Manzur and Matt Walker during the Hollywood Bowl concert show some talent to "market" the content of the album. Moz in maestro of merchandising, it's true and it's not new. But the song has something of musically disarming with a maelstrom of melodic blisters that make it pretty weak. The reference to Venezuela in crisis of authoritarianism and bottom of the hole economically is to be welcomed on this day of cessation of payment of the debt. After all, it's quite exciting to see Morrissey take us from the Middle East to South America in a few songs with a systematic stance tied to the situation of the country quoted in song.But for this specific example, this posture is not enough to save the piece of a category from which it should not go out, the secondary or even the tertiary.
"Israel" 5/5: Drum roll like a gust of uzi in slow motion, Morrissey advances in the darkness of Yad Vashem a night of Yom Kippur to tell the story of the country dreamed by Theodor Herzl and materialized by David Ben Gurion . With "Israel", the litany is as strong as in the "Israel" of Siouxsie & the Banshees and the stance is much more political than poetic. The music dramatically orchestrated by Gustavo Manzur's piano is an ideal output to a pamphlet album as announced "Spent the Day in Bed". The piano, the atmosphere, the percussive effects, everything is here to propel the listener in a rather crude black film of what Israel represents today at the time of the disappearance of his left and the emancipation not very peaceful policies of Netanyahu and his government. The singer living in Switzerland had already tried with "World Peace is None of Your Business" to take an acid look at how the big ones of this world see the citizens-voters, it succeeds there the tour de force to take the defense of a complex democracy that leaves no room for a settlement of the armed conflict that has been gnawing at it since the creation of the state in 1948.
 
Music is good but the lyrics are a little bit repetitive, I think it's a good song to hear occasionally but it can quickly get boring
 
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