Morrissey – I Am Not A Dog On A Chain

Morrissey’s latest album doubles down on much of his most recent headline grabbing behavior and unfortunately doesn’t offer much in terms of enjoyment.  In “What Kind Of People Live In These Houses” he offers a rather patronizing meditation on the lives of young people (presumably Corbyn supporters) and how they’ll end up in 10 years.  An interesting observation considering over the decades we’ve watched Morrissey transform from lovable contrarian, to problematic edgelord, and now finally he completes his journey as grumpy geezer.

Whether it’s in the title track where Moz characterizes newspapers as trouble makers, and proclaims that his views are “the truth”, or in “Knockabout World” where he’s whining about being cancelled on Twitter, there’s no shortage of Right Wing condescension on this record.  And even if the message doesn’t bother you because maybe you’re not a lyrics person, or you’re down with the cause perhaps, there’s seldom anything happening sonically to lure you into the music.  Every time someone’s about touch a single key on a synthesizer it’s guaranteed to be a bad choice.  All the synth work on I Am Not A Dog On A Chain sounds like it’s coming from a 60 year old bloke who “didn’t get” The Chemical Brothers back in the 90’s.

This is a huge issue seeing as that’s the center piece instrumentally on this entire collection.  The closest thing to a decent song on the record is the album closer “My Hurling Days Are Over” and even that contains some, let’s call it “funky” word choices that will take you out of the experience.

The good news is that Morrissey’s signature croon remains in tact well enough to make him an exciting live act for the time being at least.  It’s just tough to watch your heroes fail

.Calling Morrissey a twat on the Internet should illicit an eye roll nowadays. Not necessarily because it’s completely baseless, but because it’s just a meme that’s gotten tired while the topic of the man’s work makes for a far more interesting conversation.  Talented people turning Conservative is nothing new of course but it just doesn’t work well with rock n roll ethos.  Joel Osteen is busy parading around Kanye presumably so no one can call him racist while Noel Gallagher is slagging off Jeremy Corbyn in the press.  Billy Corgan has been a repeat guest on Alex Jones Info Wars but I guess that guys always been kind of a jerk, right?

Steven Patrick Morrissey will always be an icon and releasing the occasional dud won’t negate the value of his earlier work either with The Smiths or his own namesake.  However, if you happen to be a kid living anywhere near Moz’s home I would hesitate tossing around the frisbee.  If it lands on his property, not only is he keeping it, but he’ll probably enjoy the whole thing a little too much. 7.5/10