Call The Comet is not quite a concept album, but it is unified by connected themes. “It’s set in the not-too-distant future and is mostly concerned with the idea of an alternative society,” according to Marr; “the characters in the songs are searching for a new idealism.” Although there are dystopian elements, it seems he’s reacting positively to our present era of intense division and turbulent uncertainty by imagining a more hopeful outcome for humanity.
Always an accomplished musician, he has developed his lyric writing, as well as working on his vocals so that he is now a more than passable singer. Compared with the maverick showman Morrissey, he is not a natural frontman, though of course he was never going to be satisfied with just being a sideman. Call The Comet has Marr’s personality stamped on it all the way through. Recorded with his band and self-produced at his Crazy Face Studios in Manchester, it’s a substantial album lasting almost an hour.
Rise is a big, bold opener with crashing drums, reverberating guitar chords and shimmering synths. In an apocalyptic “dawn of the dogs”, Marr gives a rallying cry for self-empowerment: “You’re the truth… Destiny is rising.” Lead single The Tracers continues the sci-fi imagining as the singer urges us to put our salvation in “the tracers” amidst Earth’s destruction and to “ride the comet”, with “Ooh, ooh” backing vocals and a pumping bass line driving it along. Hey Angel features a coruscating guitar solo from Marr – much more squealing than chiming – as the characters merge into the ether.
Second single Hi Hello is the closest thing here to The Smiths, a bittersweet song with trademark guitar arpeggios and a groove that echoes There Is A Light That Never Goes Out. The electro-pop New Dominions, though, as its name suggests, has a futuristic vibe with its motorik beat, like the early krautrock-influenced Simple Minds, as Marr sings: “Take the fast light to the real dream / I won’t go to no darkness after.” Opening with acoustic guitar strumming, Day In Day Out is a more traditional, catchy tune with hooks galore.
Walk Into The Sea is the most experimental offering on the album, with its high-pitched piano notes, dreamily discordant ambience and part-sung, part-spoken vocals suggesting baptism for a new life: “We are born again… And hope breaks on me.” The most danceable track Bug is a rejection of the virus of right-wing ideology: “Population is sick and shaking… Nah nah no more.”
With its dark and doomy keyboards and industrial-style drumming, Actor Attractor evokes Joy Division, as Marr exhorts, “Forever we can live to the limit / Forever we can give to the limit”. The sweeter-sounding Spiral Cities has laid-back vocals and liquid guitar playing, while My Eternal is moody, The Cure-like synth rock. The soaring melody of closing track A Different Gun – a considered response to the terrorist attack in Nice on Bastille Day 2016 – accompanies Marr’s plea for living together in peaceful normality: “And we’re taking every day that comes… Stay and come out tonight.”
Compared with some of the oddball and downright disturbing comments Morrissey has been making – both in and out of his songs – over the last few years, Marr offers a vision of a more humane, liberal future. While one Smith seems to have lost the plot, another has found his voice.