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Morrissey - Swords
| Pitchfork |
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Call me morbid, call me pale, but when the news of his onstage collapse twittered and flickered across the screens of the world the other night, I couldn't help but relish the way the flame of the Morrissey Myth seemed to flare briefly back into gaudy life. You see, as Swords, mopping up of the stray B-sides and bonus tracks from the comeback years, suggests, Morrissey now has a dilemma: Following group glory, solo vindication, political notoriety, sullen exile, and dramatic revival, what on earth does he do for an encore? It's not as though he can comfortably retire to civilian life. David Thomson once wrote of how fame had condemned an elderly woman to live out her days "sequestered in the cathedral called Greta Garbo." By contrast, the young Steven Patrick eagerly triple-locked the door and then tossed away the key upon entering the gothic mansion called Morrissey. But, self-condemned to the stage, are his 50s to be an ever decreasing circuit of provincial theaters, hawking threadbare B-sides? I'm not cynical enough to suggest that the fall was psychosomatically stage-managed, but you can see how the suggestion of a final savage spotlit exit might spice up the prospect of a Saturday night in Swindon. I suppose the elegant option would be to retreat to some Tuscan villa or Parisian hotel, like Dirk Bogarde or Louise Brooks, and compose his perfectly poisonous memoirs. Or he could fade to gray in Vegas residency, crooning guttering torch songs to senile old Smiths fans. He could even return triumphant to his homeland which is eager at last to embrace him as an iconic, harmless old English eccentric, become a chatshow fixture, and accept a knighthood....full text |
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| Uncut |
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This month’s Morrissey compilation demonstrates yet again the man’s peculiarly quixotic muse. While a large proportion of these Swords are decidedly blunt blades, a few could have easily found a place on a greatest hits. The epic “Never Played Symphonies” and “Christian Dior” (singing regretfully of all the unkissed “mad street boys from Napoli”) in particular suggest that advancing age might yet sharpen his wit....full text |
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| Bbc |
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In 21 years of going it alone Morrissey has produced nine studio albums and just as many compilations. Topping a year that has seen a live DVD and unnecessary remasters of mid-1990s albums Southpaw Grammar and Maladjusted – in addition to beefy studio album Years of Refusal – is Swords, Morrissey’s first collection to be entirely made up of B sides. In addition to an eight-track bonus disc culled from a concert in Warsaw, Swords features 18 B sides spooling back from this year to 2004, the year Morrissey returned from years of stabbing pins into effigies of Mike Joyce – not to mention establishment opprobrium – to be garlanded as the saviour of intelligent pop with You Are the Quarry. That album’s singles provide most of the tracks here, although those from the luscious Ringleader of the Tormenters era dominate the stronger first half....full text |
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