Album Review: Morrissey – Your Arsenal

Some return to form for Morrissey.  Previous album Kill Uncle seemed laboured and he seemed in danger of becoming irrelevant in the 90s.  1992 saw him re-emerge with a new band and shiny new Mick Ronson-produced album Your Arsenal.  It literally roars out of the traps with the rollicking You’re Gonna Need Someone On Your Side.  Lyrically he’s right back on song with the sarcastic “here I am... well you don’t have to look so pleased”.   GLAMorous Glue is a total glam stomp.  Never before had Morrissey strutted his way so definitely through a song as he crooned “London is DEAD! London is DEAD!”  Similarly Certain People I Know echoes T. Rex’s Ride A White Swan.

A breather then for We’ll Let You Know, moodier territory on the subject of football hooliganism.  It becomes more defiant towards the end when the band picks up steam, Morrissey singing “we may seem cold or we may even be the most depressing people you’ll ever know”.  He got a lot of flack for seeming ambivalence to this and racism in National Front Disco (“England for the English”).

The classicly-titled We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful (“and if they’re northern that makes it even worse”) also contains wonderful jangly guitar.  Downtempo moments are not forgotten on this album.  Seasick, Yet Still Docked is the latest in a line of moody Morrissey moments, dating back to Pretty Girls Make Graves, while I Know It’s Gonna Happen Someday is one of his cleverest moments.  It’s a homage to David Bowie’s Rock n Roll Suicide, with the coda overtly imitating Bowie’s coda. 

Final track Tomorrow sees Boz Boorer and Alain Whyte’s guitars combine to great effect.  It’s a superb collection of songs, and one of Morrissey’s finest albums.

Album Review: Mark Eitzel – Superhits International

This was an album of demos recorded by Mark Eitzel in 1999 but never officially released, only sold on his 2001 tour. He has released several demo CDs, but this one is by far the most realised. Most of the others are mainly him and an acoustic guitar but this one features a full band on most tracks, and is definitely of releasable quality.

The Man with the Hole in his Foot appears to be a straightforward country-tinged tune, but it’s shredded toward the end by some blisteringly distorted guitar from Vudi. 1000 Miles is a fine song, featuring Eitzel’s classic yearnings for lost hopes and dreams.

Hold Me is a country song that sounds almost too obvious for one of Eitzel’s regular albums. It’s ‘perfectly’ constructed with a catchy melody, a strong chorus and typical country lyrics (“I know I’ll never be a rich man”, “hold me if you don’t have anyone”). Charm School on the other hand is like a classic 60s soul tune, full of slinky guitar. What keeps these songs from being nailed on ‘hits’ is of course Eitzel’s voice, which will never have commercial appeal.

The second half of the album by and large features more stripped down songs (Come In, Will You Ever Make Room At Your Table). Kristin Intro is a downright odd piece of electronica, featuring a female, presumably Kristin reciting lyrics to Barry Manilow’s Mandy amongst other things.

The final track, Tomorrow is the finest thing on here. Reminiscent of Sun Smog Seahorse from Eitzel’s underrated 1998 album Caught in a Trap, it consists of him singing plain and simply over some delicately plucked guitar, and it’s a thing of beauty.