Morrisey's as witty and barbed and goddamned miserable as ever on this one, but the band fights back and hard. At its best, this is probably the most fun Smiths album I've heard, with none of that stunning power of The Queen is Dead, but with a lot of swirling jangly guitars, killer jumping bass, popping drums, and overall sprightly pace. The bouncy stomp of Nowhere Fast and Rusholme Ruffians, in particular, are a thrill, making up for some of the slower no-nowheres like Well I Wonder.
But then of course there's that last track, which is a fucking misery, a blunt instrument and a debacle as a song, 6 minutes of notebook-scrawled spoken-word pronouncements against eating meat over sludgy slaughterhouse sound poems. As protest, as message, it works - I almost never eat meat and I'm still a bit haunted. So I guess Morrisey made his choice, and I guess he made his point, but he ruined his crucial last-song slot, and on some level his album, along the way. So, 'grats, I guess 3/5
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