Ringleader Of The Tormentors

Description

Product Description The sensational success of You Are The Quarry (2004) is not quite faded yet - Morrissey is presenting a new studio album that promises great things... Instead of relying on proven products, he tests new things and changes producer, location and atmosphere. None other than Tony Visconti is responsible for production and mix - and this means a significantly different sound and mood. Ringleader Of The Tormentors was also recorded entirely in Rome at the Forum Music Village. The legendary film composer Ennio Morricone works there to this day, who also arranged the strings from the second track! In terms of content, too, you can be prepared for some things that we would not have expected from Morrissey. The album has a quite positive mood and he talks rather bluntly about the big topics like sex (!) , love, death and violence. All of this, of course, in his own distinctive manner: full of perverse tenderness and with merciless ridicule, triumph still in pain, ecastatic in despair - and all this spectacularly staged by a great producer. A new Morrissey masterpiece - and a masterpiece by Tony Visconti. desertcart.co.uk Take a long hard look at that man gracing the cover of Ringleader of the Tormentors; caught mid-concerto, tempered by lofty eloquence, gliding towards a crescendo of instrumental distinction. Who’s he trying to kid exactly!? Ever since The Smiths disbanded and he was deserted by Johnny Marr, Morrissey’s work has only really been musical by association. He’s more parts lyricist than he is straight poet, you see, relying as much on the emotive reach of his mighty vocal as his articulate depression. He needs melodic accompaniment, but it’s hardly been the focus. The image does still work though, as a metaphor. Name, if you can, a greater performer of pathos, a finer maestro of the maudlin. If he is widely accepted as having been through a fallow period of creativity prior to 2004s comeback classic You Are The Quarry then he’s hammering the counterpoint now. Two albums into his renaissance and we find Moz more tender, more cinematic and, if possible, more serious than ever. Fittingly it is much more orchestral too. Take "Dear God, Please Help Me", as self pitying as expected, only bound in silk and suspended just above the depths you’d otherwise expect to find him in. And album centrepiece, the equally dolefully titled "Life is a Pigsty", which begins with a peaking "How Soon Is Now" template before descending into a spellbinding Prozac-comedown in the orchestra pit, with bruises as evidence. The emotion feels that much rawer this time. This is not an indie disco record, it has more timeless aspirations. --James Berry