Johnny Marr

Call The Comet

Intense noir rock from the Smiths songwriter with a functioning moral compass.

While former Smiths singer Morrissey is busy horrifying his remaining, nose-holding fans with his eyebrow-raising comments, guitarist Johnny Marr rises in stature as the ex-Smith you can believe in. His third solo album might not overtly reflect the political passions of his own recent interviews – bashing homelessness, capitalism, Brexit and Trump – but musically it’s as forthright as any self-penned Moz puff piece.

Emulating the gamut of darkhearted alt.rock (Joy Division, The Cure, Depeche Mode, New Order, Pixies, The Mission, even a touch of Ministry on the motorik New Dominions), his wider world view is buried beneath chunky synthrock riffs and quasi-goth atmospherics; it would take deep study to fathom, for example, that synthbagpiped single The Tracers is about the earth being saved from religion by alien AIs.

It’s an intense, powerful and sonically relevant hour, mind, and those old-school Smiths fans surviving the futuristic electro-rock freak-out of Hey Angel are rewarded with some classic Marr twangle on Bug, Day In Day Out and Hi Hello, which could have fallen straight off Meat Is Murder. A good chunk of this Comet is heaven-bound. is still intact, George coming across like an especially gruff Chip Z’Nuff jamming on some T.Rex tunes. It’s the almost unrecognisable voice that’s hardest to come to terms with – that and a cover that looks like it was done with Microsoft Paint software. Wild Eyed Beauty Queen and Dangerous Daisy are charming enough, but these are diminishing returns, a less than glittering prize.