JOHNNY MARR - The Age Of Everything

Coming to terms with a past as cumbersome as Johnny Marr's is never a trivial operation. For the man who composed and wove the guitar fabric of the immortal masterpieces credited to the Smiths, the risk of staying trapped in the gilded cage of nostalgia is always lurking around the corner. And yet, proving a creative vitality that shows no sign of flagging, and light years away from Morrissey's hyperbolic excesses, the Manchester musician returns to the scene with "The Age Of Everything", his fifth album under his own name, which confirms an authority we've been well aware of for years now.

From the very first bars, the record makes its stylistic coordinates clear, but it's pointless to search for institutional classifications like indie-jangle-rock or alt-pop: what we're hearing is the most classic "Marr touch" you could imagine, that unmistakable crystalline arpeggio that doesn't necessarily want to evoke an era long left behind, but rather become the structural element of a modern narrative ("Just Once More" is lovely). Take track three, for example, "It's Time", and tell me what you could possibly imagine today that's more "Smiths" than this. But a modernist kind of "Smiths", far more modernist than any Brigitte Calls Me Baby you could think of.
Then listen to "How Come", or "Ophelia" (heck, for a moment it really sounds like "Barbarians Begins At Home"!) and try not to let a tear fall: there's something almost moving about the way Johnny Marr pitches his voice, trying to replicate what the hated Morrissey would do, as if that were the only possible way in the world to interpret his own musical architecture.

Both on record and in a live setting, Marr seems more Morrissey than Morrissey himself, in a more refined and equally engaging way, incidentally playing far more Smiths songs on stage than his former bandmate does. And in the studio, paradoxically, he's less convincing when he tends to stray from the main path ("That Feeling"), veering into an alt-pop that does no honor to an icon of his stature. But "The Age Of Everything" remains a fine little record all the same: listen to it without prejudice.

Ride the wave of great music

Add OndaRock to your favorite sources on Google Discover. Don't miss our reviews, milestones and latest news straight in your feed.

Follow on Google

11/10/2026