ALBUM REVIEW: Morrissey "Years of Refusal"

I'm a huuuuuuuge Morrissey fan. Don't ask me to choose between The Smiths and his solo career. That's just cruel.

His new record, Years of Refusal, is his strongest yet. Lyrically it seems like this guy never runs out of ideas. The band he has is incredibly tight on this album, and the songs are all top notch. The opening track, "Something is Squeezing My Skull" is big and fast and just an all around rock tune. Morrissey may very well have the best voice in rock n roll, or atleast the most recognizable. His voice shines in "Mama Lay Softly on the Riverbed" which is a very beautiful and dark song, as is almost theatrical in a way. Another key track here is "One Day Goodbye Will Be Farewell". The opening drum fill in that song is really great, and once again the lyrics prove that Morrissey can write just about anything. He's more than a songwriter and lyricist, he's a poet.

The single "I'm Throwing My Arms Around Paris" has been playing constantly in my head for the last few weeks. It's such a great pop song and the melody in the chorus is really catchy and the whole song is just brilliant.

I know that's a short review, but I'm sure everything I'm saying here has already been said a billion times. The record is wonderful. Buy it. Now.

Six World-A Concept....EP?

Why the hell would I write a concept album?

I asked myself that question a few days ago and pondered the possible answers. "Well, because it would be a new creative direction for me and would probably help to limit the amount of writer's block I usually get after finishing AFT records". Blah blah blah.

Yea, that's a good answer, but the truth is...I just want to. Not for any greater purpose then to try something new and keep my relatively boring life outside of AFT somewhat interesting. So when the idea first popped into my head shortly after recording wrapped for the last AFT album, I kind of dismissed it because I thought I'd never find the right time to do something like that. But I think now's the time. I've written 16 songs for AFT and I don't feel like taking a break from writing is the most wise thing to do right now, so why not do something a bit challenging? It's worth a shot.

I decided I'm going to write it in a different way too. I'm literally going to start ProTools sessions for it with absolutely nothing...no lyrics, no music. Just the concept and various details I need to write the songs. I'll hook up an amp and some effects and just play until I get something that fits. I'll record the music in it's entirety and then write the lyrics. Drums and percussion will be played by Shaun Rhoades, but everything else will be done by yours truly.

I'm also going to video tape the whole entire process for your viewing pleasure some time in the future.

AND...to top it all off...I'm going to make it available on the good old internet once it's complete...for absolutely no charge.

I'm excited.

The real work begins....soon.

Last night I sat around with my list of songs for AFT's next album, and I went through all of the song titles to make sure I liked all of them. Some of them were too long for my taste, some were too short, and some were just plain awkward. One song that was the last one written for the album had a title that I, for some reason, absolutely despised. So after reading over the lyrics, I decided to do something completely Dave Matthews Band inspired...I'd name it "#26". Why 26? The only reason I can explain is because it's the day I was born. Other than that the title is completely pointless and rather silly, at least to me.

I changed another one around and decided to call it "World, Revisited." I felt like that title summed up the song and that it worked. All the other titles seemed okay to me. Now we have 16 altogether that need to be demo'd and rehearsed before March 29th.

[Nervous sigh]

Stay tuned.

Another album down.

I believe I've finished the next AFT record. I love this deadline type thing because it forces me to work diligently instead of putting off finishing a bunch of songs. How do I know I'm done? Because there's always one song that feels like I've done my job, and I wrote that the other night. On the last album, that song was "Beautiful Noise", the last song written for the album which turned out to be the title track and the popular one amongst the fine group of people who come out to see us play a lot ("fan favorite"....?)

I think this song is called "We're On Our Own", which ended up being a sort of combination of everything I felt about the word we live in since the time Obama was elected. It's actually a bunch of scattered thoughts that I sort of made out to seem like they made sense, when really they probably only make sense to me. It's the first time I've written something in an open tuning too, so that I'm particularly proud of.

Now comes the fun part.....we need to finish the demos for all of these tunes, rehearse them, and play every single one straight through for an audience on March 29th. A lot of these are ones we play regularly, but there's a lot that have never been rehearsed. I'm interested, excited, and terrified all at the same time. This March 29th gig at Bodles in Chester will be my "suck it up and talk" show, meaning that it's going to be along the same lines as VH1 Storytellers, so in one way or another I'll explain all of these songs and what they mean...something I don't do. Ever. Like I said...."suck it up and talk".

If you're in the area and feel so inclined, come check me out at ZuZu's Coffee House in Beacon, NY this Sunday at 4pm. I'll be playing solo for Songwriters Sundays and I'm really looking forward to it. Check out songwritersundays.net for more info, of course.

Wednesday night I'll be heading to Carnegie Hall to see the REM tribute show taking place there. I'm really excited for that. A lot of my favorite artists will be there doing a lot of my favorite songs. It's gonna be awesome! I've been to Carnegie Hall before, when I was pretty young, but it'll be the first rock show I see there.

Adios, amigos y amigas....or something like that.