Morrissey opened his third studio album, Your Arsenal, with a snarling rockabilly song called “You're Gonna Need Someone on Your Side.” Thirty-four years on, it feels like either an elaborate self-own or a self-fulfilling prophecy. Morrissey has now been solo for the best part of four decades. But, as his work has constantly shown, he is at his best with a strong creative partner, be it Johnny Marr in the Smiths, Vini Reilly on Viva Hate, or Mick Ronson on Your Arsenal. Make-Up Is a Lie, much like the singer's last decade of solo albums, affords Morrissey no such critical counterweight: While the record has moments of intrigue, inspiring melodies, and dramatic acts that speak to Morrissey’s undoubted skill as a songwriter, it always feels just a step away from plunging back into a lukewarm soup of stodgy production and lumpen lyrical choices.
The return to the fold of guitarist Alain Whyte, who played with Morrissey from 1991 until 2004, however, seems to have lit an occasional spark. His presence helps steer the album away from the middling melodies and rather self-satisfied air that have plagued more recent records. Whyte’s songwriting credits include fan-favorites from happier days such as “Hold on to Your Friends” and “First of the Gang to Die.” There’s nothing quite of that standard on Make-Up Is a Lie, and little that will trouble the conscience of former fans who have been put off by the singer’s political pivot into “I do my own research” guy (and worse).
But a couple of Whyte co-writes suggest that Morrissey can still raise his theatrically melancholy game when the song demands. “Boulevard,” a distant cousin to 2006’s “Life Is a Pigsty,” is particularly moving, a desperate torch-song tale of lost love and faded glamour that plays out in waltz time over a haunting piano line, bowed bass, and acoustic guitar. Say what you like about Morrissey—and people have said a lot about the singer since his politics took a turn for the unempathetic—but he can still emote his way into the darkest corners of a tune, like a man who has seen right into the emotional void.
“The Monsters of Pig Alley,” which closes the album, is considerably less dramatic but feels rueful and gently self-aware in a way that brings a welcome humility to Morrissey’s tale of curdled stardom. The song might not necessarily be about Morrissey himself, but lines like “Now the phone goes unanswered in your room/When you've tasted fame . . . nothing else will do” certainly feel like the reflections of a man who was without a record label for several years before Sire stepped in.
On the whole, Make-Up Is a Lie works best when Morrissey’s collaborators introduce sonic wrinkles to the mix. “Many Icebergs Ago,” which inhabits similarly grandiose territory to “Boulevard,” rides on the unlikely mixture of mandolin, upright bass, and guitar drone; “Headache” is offset by the jazzy tones of brushed drums and upright bass. And the title track features what sounds like a bouzouki riff, although it is let down by strangely disposable lyrics on what might be the least enigmatic song Morrissey has ever sung. On this evidence, it’s hard to know why make-up is a lie, or why we should care one way or the other.
Whyte’s other songwriting contribution to the album, by contrast, illustrates all that can go wrong with solo Morrissey. “Notre-Dame” bobbles along on an ultra-polite disco-pop backing that suggests Maroon 5 on a no-caffeine workout, and Morrissey barely raises his vocal game beyond the absolute minimum of a somewhat aggrieved middle-aged Morrissey song. The lyrics, even if you can get around the idea that the singer appears to be suggesting a conspiracy theory about the Notre-Dame fire, are lackadaisical, the same four lines repeated ad nauseam. The most interesting thing about the song might be the scratchy, lo-fi guitar solo half way through, and that only lasts 15 seconds.
At times like these, Joe Chiccarelli’s sun-smoothed production doesn’t help. “Notre-Dame” and opener “You’re Right, It’s Time” slink by with the faceless gloss of a latter-period Star Wars film, while the ’70s funk facsimile of “The Night Pop Dropped”—part of an oddly chirpy mid-section to the album alongside the Austin Powers psychedelia of “Zoom Zoom the Little Boy”—would be more convincing with a bit of dirt on its heels. There’s no grit here, no gnashing of musical teeth, and no moments of wild abandon that make you want to smear yourself into the musical soil and proclaim these songs your life.
Being a Morrissey fan—lapsed or present—hasn’t been easy, and it sometimes feels like life would be more simple if Morrissey’s music was straight-out awful or offensive. Make-Up Is a Lie isn’t that; nor is it his best album in decades, a platitude that often gets wheeled out whenever Morrissey waits more than five years between releases. Make-Up is a Lie shows signs of progress and signs of regression; artful touches and clunking gaffs; soaring tunes and leaden lyrics. There’s hope in there for Morrissey and his fans. But isn’t it the hope that kills you?
