1988 03 19 Morrissey "Viva Hate" NME Review

EDUCATION IN REVERSE

MORRISSEY 

Viva Hate (HMV LP/ Cassette/CD)

WASN'T IT Neil Sedaka who, while twisting decorously in hideous acrylic leisurewear, first observed that breaking up is hard to do? And so it is. Yet imploding in full public view must be harder still, and for Morrissey - a startlingly prolific if sometimes profligate songwriter - to emerge so swiftly post-Smiths with a solo album is remarkable in itself.

By proving that he can work successfully with Stephen Street he is delivering a slap in the face with a wet fish to the nudging ranks of non-believers who felt he would fall apart creatively without the support of Johnny 'Guitar' Marr.

'Viva Hate', if not exactly open heart surgery, is still the rigorous exercise in self-examination we might have expected. And like most new beginnings, it has its roots in the past. "I'm so glad to grow older/ To move away from those awful times ", he sings in 'Break Up The Family', two-thirds of the way through a collection of songs that, despite this declaration, deals almost exclusively with the emotional turbulence and extravagant shoe styles of an early '70s adolescence. After the autobiographical progress of the latter Smiths releases, dangerous flirtations with a grown-up world, Morrissey finds himself irresistibly drawn back to the unhappy past he has tried to escape.

We're back in the territory of classroom romance, lust in the chalkdust, the desperate need to belong, and yet, the perverse celebration of an otherness to the "... ordinary boys/Happy going nowhere, just around here/In their rattling cars/And ordinary girls/Never seeing further/Than the cold, small streets / That trap them" ('The Ordinary Boys'). With a textbook case of teenage arrogance, they may be envied for their self-satisfaction ("So lucky, so lucky, so lucky") but ultimately pitied and patronised for their blinkered lives, their very ordinary-ness. Morrissey can always bear to be special.

'Alsatian Cousin opens 'Viva Hate' with a wilfully ugly (and in view of Marr's departure, ironic) burst of guitar thrash. An extreme case of 'To Sir With Love', it casts Morrissey as a jealous young Sherlock, demanding to know the precise details in which a rival's relationship with the tweed-jacketed object of his infatuation has been consumated: "On a groundsheet/Under canvas / With your tent-flap/Open wide .. ." he speculates morbidly.

He lays aside his introspection on 'Little Man, What Now?' and 'Bengali In Platforms', the former a homage to a one-time juvenile lead too obscure to be recognised on a Looks Familiar-style TV nostalgia show, the latter a gentle rebuke to an immigrant so anxious to be assimilated into his new surroundings ("He only wants to embrace your culture / And to be your friend forever") that he risks broken ankles and vertigo. "Shelve your western plans", he advises him softly, "Life is hard enough when you belong here". A wistful delivery and decidedly non-anthemic backing offer watertight protection against any charges of implicit racism, and the inclusion of both songs disproves the popular misconception that Morrissey can only write from the perspective of first-person singular.

Sandwiched between the two is the glorious, swooning pop of the forthcoming single 'Everyday Is Like Sunday' - New Order meet John Betjeman on the sorry sands of an English seaside resort "... that they forgot to bomb". It's the one song on the album that would stand up as an instrumental (the relative absence of any truly stirring tunes is where Morrissey misses Marr the most), and lyrically it confirms its writer's reputation as one of the most skilful chroniclers of all that is shabby and drab and joyless in this sceptered isle.

'Angel, Angel, Down We Go Together' follows in the Bengali's platformed wake, a seemingly deliberate lifeline to those most seduced by the complexion on suicide offered in such Smiths songs as 'Asleep'. "I will be here/ BELIEVE ME/I will be here... believe me", he croons. "Angel, don't take your life / Some people have got no pride / They do not understand/The Urgency of Life". It's the most specific proof yet that Morrissey feels a responsibility towards those for whom his most hopeless, death-embracing lyrics are as if words of advice written in stone.

Echoes of the tough kid, raised on Prisoner's Aid, who sometimes swallowed nails ('I Want The One I Can't Have') can be heard on what is, in terms of time allotted, the album's cornerstone, the seven minutes and 40 seconds of 'Late Night, Maudlin Street'. It's on stories like this, of juvenile infatuation, that Morrissey's talent for the absurd detail and the wildly self-deprecating aside shines the brightest. "But you... without clothes/Oh I could not keep a straight face /Me - without clothes?/ Well a nation turns its back and gags.. ", he sings above Vini Reilly's sympathetic, ambient guitar murmurings while heading the run-off grooves of the opening side.

Flipped over, 'Suedehead' and its seeming dialogue between love object and the one in love leads into 'Break Up The Family' - resonances of a departing parent, lost friends and the familiar passenger seat-ride to love and, if necessary, eternity. "Captain of games, solid framed/ Hailstones, driven home/In his car - no brakes? I don't mind" gives way to "I'm in love for the first time/And I don't feel bad / So wish me luck my friends/ Goodbye".

A leave-taking far closer to the here-and-now is hinted at in 'I Don't Mind If You Forget Me', which follows on from 'The Ordinary Boys'. Emotionally contradictory, it begins by noting the etiquette of abandonment ("So now you send me your hardened 'regards'/When once you'd send me 'love'") then betrays its cool by kicking out in capital letters: "REJECTION IS ONE THING/BUT REJECTION FROM A FOOL/IS CRUEL", it shouts twice above the racket of Reilly's rockiest, grimiest setting. There's forgiveness too though, couched in terms that make the casting of Marr as the song's antagonist all but inescapable: "The pressure to change, to move on / Was strange/And very strong/So this is why I tell you/I really do understand/BYE BYE".

One last unsentimental journey into the past on 'Dial-A-Cliche' completes Morrissey's re-examination of his youth. The desire to conform and follow masculine advice are seen to have brought only pain and self-deception and certainly cannot guarantee any lasting respect or affection.

And it's at this point that 'Viva Hate' offers its most provocative and out-of-context song, the closing 'Margaret On The Guillotine' - its almost dream-like backing and muscle-relaxing repetition nursing a plea for the Prime Minister's head. Brave and silly and tabloid-titillating all at the same time, it's nothing if not singular, and, public outcries and mass boycotting by record store owners permitting, will probably by the cleverest piece of major-label subversion achieved this year.

This hiccough excepted, 'Viva Hate' finds Narcissus poking a stick into the murky waters of his private pond, disturbing and distorting his reflection and seeming not to care if it detracts from his appearance. It's a brave record and sometimes beautiful - honest, angry and vulnerable, mercifully free of commercial constraints. Morrissey can and probably will do better than some of its more careless moments, but it's unlikely that too many other artists will equal its best achievements before the year's end.

Only Sedaka's stage outfits could rival it for sheer, breathtaking nerve. (8)

Alan Jackson