Album Reviewed: Ringleader of the Tormentors
Artist: Morrissey
Release Date: 02 April 2006
Producers: Tony Vinscoti
Label: Santuary Records
Length: 50m 04s
Track listing
01.I Will See You in Far-off Places
02.Dear God Please Help Me
03.You Have Killed Me
04.The Youngest Was the Most Loved
05.In the Future When All's Well
06.The Father Who Must Be Killed
07.Life Is a Pigsty
08.I'll Never Be Anybody's Hero Now
09.On the Streets I Ran
10.To Me You Are a Work of Art
11.I Just Want to See the Boy Happy
12.At Last I Am Born
So after more than a month, I am back with my post. An extraodinary album that I have to review. Of course it's the Magestic Morrissey with the much anticipated new album Ringleader and the Tormentors
Early in recording Morrissey's publicist described it as "the most full-on rock record Morrissey's ever done. It's a balls-to-the-wall rock record, not a slow one like the last one." Yet in typical Morrissey style this seems to have been a myth. Producer Tony Visconti, took over the production role and Morrissey announced that Ringleader of the Tormentors is to be "the most beautiful—perhaps the most gentle, so far." Morrissey himself has declared that Ringleader.. is no continuation of You Are The Quary and has no connection to the past. After a few listen to it, to say it has no connection to the past is not exactly true. Ringleader still inherit some distict You Are the Quary sound. However, the breakthrough here is perhaps the use of string ochestra under the mastery of Ennio Morricone . It is a new sound for Morrissey, a more sophisticated, sweeping and almost a cinema-esque masterpiece.
Lyrically, it's the usual Morrissey style that dealt with themes such as rejections, sorrow, redemption and love. The lyrics are verbally brilliant, almost like a collection of coherent stories of Morrissey's life story that dedicates to love and death, sex and killing.
The first single from the album will be You Have Killed Me and is due release on the 27th March. It was said that You Have Killed Me will effectively illustrate the new style of the album. I find this song lyrically ambiguous and funny. The opening line "Pasolini is me / Accatone you'll be" was a reference to a controversial Italian movie by Pasolini about pimps and prostitues living in the slums of Rome. Then he sings “I entered nothing and nothing entered me / ‘til you came with the key”. Genius. How often do we get a direct referral to sexual penetration in pop music other than rap music?
Perhaps the best song from the album was the most talked about song, long before the album was released running for more than 7 minutes - is Live is a Pigsty. Now this song is most unlikely resembles any of Morrissey's previous work. Employing the sting ochestra at it grandest with sounds of thunder rambling and piano playing, this song is meant to be an epic.
Besides the ochestra arrangement, the Italian Children Choir was also employed in two songs in Ringleader, the future single, The Youngest Was The Most Loved, which explores the life early lives of a killer. Then the choir reappears again in the much controversial and twisted The Father Who Must Be Killed which sees Moz's lyrics going on a darker side, "Stepchild, there's a knife in the drawer in the room downstairs. You know what you must do!"
It is always amazing to listen to Morrissey's album. It was always sarcastically funny, almost mocking the listerner (or himself), mysterious and deep. When Morrissey sings, you hear a very natural desperation, disguist, love, selfishness and often pathetic. And, with all these mixed up emotions only Morrissey can charm his way through the listeners. It was a surreal experience really. Ringleader is an album, continuation of You Are The Quary, not so much in musical style, but its content. Its a story re-told, explaining himself, but not fully giving anything away. Ringleader Of The Tormentors is the sound a man with a new sense of purpose, and in this extraordinary record he's produced a masterpiece.
Beakers Verdict: A
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