mc_escher

It was certainly a brutal review. I'm glad you thought it over a while longer than I did: my comments were pretty much a first impression and read as such. I agree with the majority of what you say, and I think it stands as a pretty decent album, all things considered.

Your point about Moz's battle with the UK press is interesting. As you may know, NME basically branded Morrissey some kind of racist after he was spotted waving a flag at a gig, which at the time was something strongly associated with neo-Nazis (if only he'd waited until Britpop, eh?). It didn't help that he was playing the show with Madness who had an unfortunate skinhead following at the time. Rather than intepret it as a bold, patriotic reclaiming of the Union Jack, they saw it as some kind of right-wing statement, even though there was nothing to support that theory at all in Morrissey's lyrics, interviews, etc. Anyway. The UK music press, NME in particular, has always built an artist up to better shoot them down later on.

If Moz bears a grudge, it doesn't show too much, as he's recently been all over NME: a two-part interview, photoshoots, and most recently, an interview with Franz Ferdinand (which was actually the best thing NME's printed in ages).