The Queen is Dead is an undeniable masterpiece, but The Smiths' debut shows little signs of the magic to come. This is purely the Morrissey show, his warbling gravied generously over some pretty thin, largely forgettable guitar jangle. Oftentimes the tremulous crooning seems altogether disconnected from the actual song. For example: album closer Suffer Little Children sounds like a hastily tracked demo, like some proto-indie mashup where Morrissey wanders over beats intended for another song altogether that chime on and on aimlessly. It's emblematic of the problem with the entire album.
The first few songs show some structural chops and punk bristle, but the dominance of that hyperinflected moaning is numbing before you know it, the second half of the album almost impossible not to accidentally tune out. Absent the relentless guitar energy and texture and tunefulness that marked their masterpiece, replaced instead with more and more and more Morrissey, this is a flat, often annoying album. Influential, sure. Brave in its subject matter, probably. Hastily underestimated and ill-served by my first-impression format, possibly. But a first listen and a half wasn't any fun at all 2/5
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