Buy Now
- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
-
Nov 17, 2017Low in High School, his 11th solo album, is as dazzling and infuriating as anything in his canon, full of the stuff that has made the 58-year-old former Smiths frontman one of the most provocative and adored stars of our time.
-
Q MagazineNov 9, 2017Morrissey, at 58, once again proves himself a pop provocateur of enduring efficacy. [Dec 2017, p.100]
-
MagnetDec 22, 2017Even when you can't quite tell whether you want to laugh with or at Morrissey's heavy-handed proclamations, they're provocative, and that's worth a lot. [No. 149, p.51]
-
Nov 16, 2017Instead of your lonely, romantic proxy, he’s your surly, sometimes cool uncle who’s set in his ways but still capable of surprises. Low In High School has a few of those, most effectively on the mid-album epic “I Bury The Living.”
-
Nov 17, 2017The backup ain't the Smiths, but its solid and campy, adding its own wit. As philosophical alt-rock standup goes, the man is still peerless.
-
Nov 9, 2017Here we have him boldly stating his desires, aligning himself with our baser nature. Whether this is a sign of a lack of subtlety or a brave forward step is, of course, up for debate but that clash of the brutal and the human, the savage and the sensual is certainly compelling.
-
Nov 21, 2017His 11th solo studio album Low in High School is a mixed bag of brilliance and dross. There are some genuinely interesting new explorations while other tracks are deeply disappointing. Disconcertingly uneven, yes, but not safely predictable.
-
Nov 16, 2017Low in High School can seem as aurally conflicted as it is politically, and that may be an appropriate look for Morrissey in 2017: He's opted for a mad world of his own creation and doesn't much care whether his fans follow or not.
-
Nov 16, 2017What it all amounts to is your standard Morrissey solo album: great songs cheek-by-jowl with songs that would once never have got past reception; brilliance alongside stuff that boggles the mind; not bad, but not built to reach far beyond his standard fanbase.
-
Nov 15, 2017We have Low in High School, which is sometimes brilliant, sometimes infuriating, and 100 percent Morrissey.
-
Nov 13, 2017Low occasionally summons enough leavening fervour to make a Morrissey album seem worth the time: no small achievement after his dreaded political blather.
-
MojoNov 9, 2017This album is partisan, powerful and controversial. [Dec 2017, p.87]
-
Nov 20, 2017If you’ve loved his music since The Smiths, and their music actually brings you joy, well, then there are things to be found on Low in High School that could possibly, maybe, present a solid argument for attempting to find a way to suck the goodness from this album ... while spitting out the pulp that is Morrissey himself.
-
Nov 21, 2017A few songs are some of Morrissey’s most engaging, exciting work of the 21st century. Other songs get your attention for the wrong reasons. ... His political musings all arrive with a crushing lack of subtlety or nuance.
-
Nov 20, 2017Mmost frustrating about this album are the shades of old Morrissey.
-
UncutNov 9, 2017This is in many ways his weakest since Kill Uncle. [Dec 2017, p.20]
-
Nov 20, 2017Too often, though, Morrissey sticks with sturdy, stomping rock, its workmanlike construction bogged down by turgid lyrics.
-
Nov 20, 2017As ever, the messages are mixed, on many levels.
-
Nov 17, 2017Low In High School feels confused, misplaced, and tedious.
-
Nov 17, 2017This record does have its moments, though any instances of real connection are a notable rarity.
-
Nov 16, 2017For while there’s no denying that Low In High School is more musically exploratory than usual, drawing from glam rock, electropop, tango and Tropicalismo, the singer himself has rarely exhibited such a grating combination of spite and self-pity. ... The album’s lengthy centrepiece “I Bury The Living”, an odious slab of trundling guitar bombast, lambasts as “just honour-mad cannon-fodder” the work of soldiers whom he presumes are too stupid to understand the wars they’re involved in.
-
Nov 15, 2017Morrissey can alienate fans with outlandish outbursts or with decidedly average new music, but both at the same time is surely too much for even the most forgiving fan.
-
Nov 14, 2017The 12-song album’s first five tracks are passable, if not actually quite enjoyable. Beyond this point, though, only the most hardened Moz fan should dare to venture. ‘The Girl From Tel Aviv Who Wouldn’t Kneel’ is an unbearable cha-cha-cha; ‘Who Will Protect Us From The Police?’ is lumpen electro; and least listenable track ‘Israel’ sees him deliver political polemic via the dubious medium of a piano ballad.
-
Nov 17, 2017The saddest thing is that all the emotionally flat crooning and awkward lyricism is set to the most blandly serviceable of arena-rock backing tracks complete with by-numbers horn and string parts (the orchestra being the last refuge of the uninspired rockstar), performed by session musicians who’ve honed their craft from stints backing the likes of Alanis Morissette and Billy Corgan. The net result makes The Killers look like Throbbing Gristle.
-
Nov 17, 2017It's Morrissey's weakened, diminished lyricism that kicks it down from being a solid-if-not-stunning Moz record to something almost unpalatable.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
-
Positive: 33 out of 67
-
Mixed: 9 out of 67
-
Negative: 25 out of 67
-
Nov 23, 2017
-
Nov 17, 2017
-
Jan 17, 2018