Years Of Refusal

Last time we saw Morrissey, on a rather slapdash Greatest Hits compilation, he was singing a song called "All You Need Is Me" and promising "You'll miss me when I'm gone." Neither proposition seemed watertight: His 2000s return to action had been welcome but rarely spectacular, and the man looked set on a twilit career of gently diminishing returns. So Years of Refusal comes as a gratifying shock: It's his most vital, entertaining, and savage record since 1994's Vauxhall and I.