Johnny Marr - Call The Comet album review

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 dark- hearted 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 synth- bagpiped 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.