Product Description

'Ringleader Of The Tormentors' is the eighth album from theiconic Mancunian vocalist Morrissey. In a departure from his previous albums, Morrissey has chosen to incorporate Morricone-esque strings and arrangements into these songs. This makes for a sound that is both sweeping and cinematic, however, his usual themes of rejection and redemption are as prevelant as on his 2004 'comeback' album, 'You Are The Quarry'. Includes the single 'You Have Killed Me'.

Track Listing

1. I Will See You In Far Off Places
2. Dear God, Please Help Me
3. You Have Killed Me
4. The Youngest Was The Most Loved
5. In The Future When All's Well
6. The Father Who Must Be Killed
7. Life Is A Pigsty
8. I'll Never Be Anybody's Hero
9. On The Street's I Ran
10. To Me You Are A Work Of Art
11. I Just Want To See The Boy Happy
12. At Last I Am Born

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12337 in Music
• Released on: 2008-02-26
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 50 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Take a long hard look at that man gracing the cover of Ringleader of the Tormentors; caught mid-concerto, tempered by lofty eloquence, gliding towards a crescendo of instrumental distinction. Who's he trying to kid exactly!? Ever since The Smiths disbanded and he was deserted by Johnny Marr, Morrissey's work has only really been musical by association. He's more parts lyricist than he is straight poet, you see, relying as much on the emotive reach of his mighty vocal as his articulate depression. He needs melodic accompaniment, but it's hardly been the focus. The image does still work though, as a metaphor. Name, if you can, a greater performer of pathos, a finer maestro of the maudlin.

If he is widely accepted as having been through a fallow period of creativity prior to 2004s comeback classic You Are The Quarry then he's hammering the counterpoint now. Two albums into his renaissance and we find Moz more tender, more cinematic and, if possible, more serious than ever.

Fittingly it is much more orchestral too. Take "Dear God, Please Help Me", as self pitying as expected, only bound in silk and suspended just above the depths you'd otherwise expect to find him in. And album centrepiece, the equally dolefully titled "Life is a Pigsty", which begins with a peaking "How Soon Is Now" template before descending into a spellbinding Prozac-comedown in the orchestra pit, with bruises as evidence. The emotion feels that much rawer this time. This is not an indie disco record, it has more timeless aspirations. --James Berry

Customer Reviews

'He'll ALWAYS Be Somebody's Hero Now'
'Ringleader Of The Tormentors' is a record of quite stunning emotional potency. In a way it is also a departure for Morrissey in the respect that there are parts of it where it feels as if the great man is singing for his own satisfaction as a kind of therapy. Songs like 'Dear God Please Help Me', 'In The Future when All's Well' and opener 'I Will see You In Far Off Places' have an exclusivity to the lyrics almost as if Morrissey feels wary of the fact that they give way too much away about himself. For a man that has built a (thoroughly deserved) reputation as the champion of the lost and the lonely, this is a little strange to adapt to for a while and for once you find yourself trying hard to relate to him. The stench of fear and death are everywhere on this record and you feel the aging Morrissey is becoming ever more aware of his own mortality. Best track for me is the very passionately sung 'I'll Never Be Anybody's Hero Now' where all of these fears are expressed to greatest effect. 'Ringleader' then is a more personal record than any that has gone before it but this is not to say that it is not another great album! Of the 12 tracks on offer all are memorable in their own right and only the overlong 'Life Is A Pigsty' really fails to sparkle. 'To Me You Are A Work Of Art' surely has to be the nearest thing to a love song that the great man has written, yet 'Ringleader' is also a good old fashioned rock and roll album chock full of zesty guitar playing and drum hitting! Summing up then, this is another reputation enhancing album. It's also just possible that its one where, at last, we are witness to the real Steven Patrick Morrissey publicly revealing himself. EXCELLENT.

Ringleader Of The Tormentors/Morrissey
So,the Morrissey solo career motors on.This,his first effort with Tony Visconti continues with his recent revival.He still does'nt have a song better than his Smith's work.This is still a very good album with three classics for the future best of.You Have Killed Me a swirling guitar masterpiece,written to be a hit.Dear God,Please Help Me is as emotional song we HAVEN'T come to expect from Moz.In fact,it can be uncomfortable to lsten to.Life Is A Pigsty is an epic seven minute piece of misery,befitting of his life work.

Highly recommended.

An Italian Job
After several years then of self-imposed exile, 2004's "You Are the Quarry" was very well received. However, the suspicion was that much of this acclaim was really just celebrating Moz being back at all, so long as the album did not prove to be a total turkey. His second "comeback" album was always going to be the acid test - could The Miserable One cut it on the merits of his music alone?

"You Are the Quarry" allowed Morrissey to work through any number of pent-up issues and frustrations - anger with America, his despisement of authority figures, and his bitterness towards former Smiths' drummer Mike Joyce being prime among them. This has given Morrissey the freedom to explore once more the themes that have made him famous - love, death, loneliness, and generally being at odds with the world. Indeed, "Life is a Pigsty", which is reminiscent of W.B. Yeats' poem "The Circus Animals' Desertion" ("What can I but enumerate old themes"), notes in its opening lines that:

It's the same old S.O.S. /
But with brand new broken fortunes /
And once again I turn to you /
Once again I do I turn to you /

In keeping with any vintage work of the maestro, the album is marvellously ambiguous - expectations of his own death clash with being born, songs of love and lust contradict songs of despair at being alone. Much attention has been given to explicit lines such as "there are explosive kegs between my legs", "now I'm spreading your legs with mine in-between", and "I entered nothing and nothing entered me" from an artist popularised as being celibate. While this may be new ground in terms of Moz's lyrical expression, to distill just this from the album would be the equivalent of reducing "Waiting for Godot" down to being a two-act play where one of the actors drops his pants.

Key aspects of this album are that it has been produced by legendary producer Tony Visconti (T-Rex, Bowie, Thin Lizzy, U2, Stranglers, Mercury Rev...) and that it was recorded in Rome. Indeed, the Italian influences on this album are manifest, not least on the stirring "Dear God, Please Help Me". This song has Morrissey at possibly his most plaintively evocative, supported by a miminalist strings arrangement scored by the prolific film score composer, Ennio Morricone ("The Good, The Bad & The Ugly", "A Fistful of Dollars", "Once Upon A Time in the West", "The Untouchables", "The Mission"...). It is a haunting song, ending in Bono-esque fashion with perhaps the greatest clue as to what is really Morrissey's true state of mind:

And now I am walking through Rome /
And there is no room to move /
But the heart feels free /

The heart feels free /
The heart feels free /
But the heart... feels free


Continuing the Italian theme, the poet, writer, and filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini and his 1960 film "Accattone" are namechecked on "You Have Killed Me", the first single off the album. Pasolini was both acclaimed and criticised for his political and sexually frank poetry. Accattone was a character who lived his life in the underbelly of Rome - a pimp and a thief, who is both a charismatic and tragic figure. No wonder Morrissey feels at home in Rome!

However, is there any classic Morrissey on this album? Hopefully, titles like "The Father Who Must Be KIlled" and "Life is a Pigsty" answer that! The best example though probably is "The Youngest Was the Most Loved", the second single off the album, which begins:

The youngest was the most loved /
The youngest was the shielded /
We kept him from the world's glare /
And he turned into a killer


The chorus to this song is "there is no such thing in life as normal", which is repeatedly sung by Moz with the help of a children's choir. Their fragile voices are jarring the first time you hear them. However, it does add a clever twist to the line.

There is more acerbic wit on "The Father Who Must be Killed":

And the father who must be killed /
Is a step-father but nonetheless /
The way he chews his food /
Rips right through your senses /


Loneliness is the other prevalent theme on this album with "I'll Never Be Anybody's Hero" contrasting sharply with the conclusion of many from listening to "Dear God, Please Help Me" or "To Me You Are a Work of Art" that Morrissey has turned a corner in his lovelife:

Things I've heard and I've seen /
And I've felt and I've been /
Tell me I'll never be anybody's lover now /
It begins in the heart /
And it hurts when it's true /
It only hurts because it's true


Indeed, Moz is at his best when he is ambiguous and contradictory and his songs will always mock those who try to glean too much autobiographical content from them. For as he says on "On the Streets I Ran", he has made a career out of turning sickness into popular song.

To answer the question though posed at the start, this album cuts like a knife through butter. For sure, some of the songs do not have the best lyrics that Morrissey has ever written and there are times when Visconti's production seems to overly dominate Morrissey's voice (e.g. "I Will See You in Far-Off Places"). However, such is the intelligence with which this album is crafted, it requires thought and effort to appreciate how much it has to offer. After all, Rome was not built in a day...