“Morrissey and some (barely audible) high-profile guests rework 12 of his favorite ’60s and ’70s songs by American artists to mixed results.”
““I’m not sorry,” Morrissey sang on his gangbusters 2004 comeback album ‘You Are The Quarry’, “for all the things I’ve said / There’s a wild man in my head”. His first record in seven years, it was an album that shimmered with pomp and swagger, stuffed with bejewelled riffs and lyrics by turns self-excoriating and beautiful (from ‘Come Back To Camden’: “Your leg came to rest against mine / Then you”
“A week after Morrissey appeared on a late-night talk show wearing a badge in support of an anti-Islam, far-right minor political party (not to mention the preceding decade of contentious proclamations), it is impossible to hear a number of the covers on California Son in anything but a chilling light. Dylan’s Only a Pawn in Their Game, about the US government’s weaponising of poor white people in ”
“For the most part, Morrissey sounds like a cheap facsimile of himself; an aged crooner without any latter-day grace. Moreover, the features list on this album, including Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day, occasionally comes into play with no impact. Coupled with Morrissey's complete lack of finesse in his vocals are the instrumentals, which are, for the most part, the dictionary definition of clinical.”
