With A New Album Out, Morrissey Returns For This Year’s Coachella
Posted: 03/24/2009 03:40:32 PM PDT

After the 5th take, Morrsisey got his pensive look down [Photo Courtesy of MySpace]
After the 5th take, Morrsisey got his pensive look down
[Photo Courtesy of MySpace]
Earlier this year, you may have heard a throng of self-brooding Morrissey fans rejoice. Well, for only a minute. After all, Morrissey fans can’t be explicitly joyous for too long.

With the release of his ninth solo album, Years of Refusal, the Moz dropped a mercurial batch of tunes filled with self-doubting, longing, angst, cynicism…and hope. Yep, pretty much brandishing the ol’ tried and true trademark Morrissey sound.

The Morrissey that’s digestible by everyone — moody modsters, jocks, Brit-pop aficionados, hipsters, casual pop fans, etc. — has never been more present than in the album’s first single, “I’m Throwing My Arms Around Paris.” With this song he proclaims: “In the absence of your love, and in the absence of human touch, I have decided that I’m throwing my arms around; around Paris because only stone and steel accept my love.”

Years of Refusal, his first album in three years, also brings back a fuller band sound that had been missing from his last few efforts. The guitars are rich and the percussion packs power; The Pied Piper of Gloom and Doom, with his yearning vocals, shows that his voice is as strong as it has ever been. “Mama Lay Yourself on the Riverbed” reminds us that Morrissey is at his best when he’s most vulnerable (“Life is nothing much to lose. It’s just so lonely here without you.”).

Fans of the Moz will have a chance to hear his new melodramatic jams at this year’s Coachella on April 17th. Morrissey was around when Coachella first kicked off in 1999, playing along with Beck, The Chemical Brothers, Tool, Pavement, and Rage Against the Machine. There is no other place outside of England that Morrissey is more cherished and loved than he is in Southern California, where he has a burgeoning Latino fan base. You can catch a free documentary, showing at Space 15 Twenty tonight, that explains this curious phenomenon.

As Morrissey pines in “One Day Goodbye Will Be Farewell” (“One day goodbye will be farewell. So wrap me while we still have the time.”), it’s best to catch him perform before he decides to hang up his Converse and let his pompadour down. Have no doubt, Years of Refusal shows that Morrissey is still relevant.