A deluxe Notre-Dame? Morrissey, you do treat us. A deluxe Notre-Dame is the equivalent of a special car crash or a unique bout of food poisoning. You’re going to be endangered and in pain either way so you may as well brace yourself. Make-Up is a Lie is pathetic work from Morrissey, even by his modern standard of moaning the media has turned his back on him while simultaneously handing out press passes to his shows. There is not a media blackout, just an absence of positive coverage. He sounds fantastic live still, that is undeniable, and he has delivered a backlog of songs and albums that make up for his more recent, miserable offerings. Forget the album attached to the backend of this extra release, no doubt made to throw those dedicated Mozheads into their wallets for the second time in a year. An orchestral version of his worst single to date and two songs deemed not strong enough for the main event, but good enough for a post-release blowout.
Few highlights from this Morrissey release at the best of times, bar The Night that Pop Dropped which feels like such an outlier it’s like a sleeper agent being activated by the right codeword. Back to the snooze for Moz before and after that, though. Still there are two (technically three) new songs to sink yourselves into with Deluxe Notre-Dame. An orchestral version of, honest to God, one of the worst songs Morrissey has ever written, and two other singles. Few would willingly listen to Notre-Dame again. A waste of competent instrumental work with Morrissey dealing an absurd performance where he suggests there is more than meets the eye to the cathedral fire. You wouldn’t need a listen through of the orchestral to know it’s abysmal. The last thing that song needed was stripping back to its roots. Hardly orchestral either since it still relies, primarily, on the guitar, which is strangely changed and then swapped out for a tiresome, plodding drumbeat.
Promises of reflection and musings on a career cut out of the mainstream and then revived by Sire Records. Hello Hell is rightly cut from the record. An embarrassing attempt from Morrissey to suggest life is hell when he still tours fairly regularly and can land a record deal in good time. Not quick enough to not complain about this apparent slight against him and his fans, but there you go. Hello Hell at least has some interesting instrumental choices, just none of them interesting enough to stick with. A bit all over the place and it’s this lacklustre instrumental occasion that means it makes sense to get rid of it from the album. It’d make more sense to leave it in the archive, too. Considering that’s the only song that fans were waiting around for after the release of Happy New Tears, the Deluxe Notre-Dame experience feels wholly embarrassing.
But it shouldn’t have been. Morrissey has released singles before this and after I Am Not a Dog on a Chain which felt sincerely interesting. One, but still more than the hits rate of this latest album. Deluxe Notre-Dame somehow redacts even more than imagined from the original album. A cruel experience having to listen to Notre-Dame three times. Two of the original studio and one with a miserable orchestral addition. None of it feels all that engaging or interesting in the slightest, and much of what Morrissey has to say across Deluxe Notre-Dame remains the same as it was earlier this year. He lacks the bite that defined his earliest and greatest hits. Instead you have Morrissey the caricature. He’d write songs about The Guardian and Johnny Marr if he could, but it’s bad form to air dirty laundry in public. As Morrissey has often done.
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