I spent yesterday streaming the new Johnny Marr album The Messenger and I am second to no one in my admiration of the album's sound. The guitar is a marvel, Marr chimes like an angel and on the best tracks, the early "The Right Thing Right" and the latter "Sun & Moon" make it on pure star power -the guitar break has its own internal lick on its riff and it flows. But before the second track is over, The Messenger is getting very very ordinary and track after track is disappointment after disappointment.
After 30 years to get it right, the least of Morrisey's solo albums blow it away. The song writing is terrible. Nothing here works as great song, how does he manage to get it all wrong on track after track? And the sucking is worse still. It's a weird mess of an album, everything charges out of the gate, "European Me" has the best half a minute to a song you'll hear and then just blows. I mean the meldoy sucks, the lyric, the singing. WHat a disaster, what a stinker. "Generate Generate" starts with a bang and then falls apart til a terrific guitar break takes it to another level followed by a crap verse and a terrific fade. Apparently, Marr can't complete a song and because he doesn't need to when he is playing he doesn't bother. "Say Demesne" is worse than the title would have you believe.
It all sounds like, every thing rock in the UK in 2013 owes so much to, Paul Weller (the same way US pop owes so much to Sting) and this stuff is typical by the numbers UK rock and a little more because, cmon, that guitar is a wonder. But it isn't that great a wonder.
I've heard huge arguments about who is better Morrissey or Marr but this ends the argument completely. Marr is no Morrissey and this albums flies when Marr plays, the way the new Wayne Shorter works when he plays, but otherwise it crashes and burns. A major major crash and burn disaster.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2013/feb/18/johnny-marr-messenger-stream?CMP=twt_gu
Grade: C