Morrissey: 'Something Is Squeezing My Skull'

Morrissey's renaissance since his self-imposed seven-year absence from the charts has long stopped being a surprise. His second single from Years Of Refusal - and fourth if you include the pair of tracks that already featured on his umpteenth greatest hits comp - is perhaps his first in half a decade that doesn't seem like an event worth noting. Just another release from the meat-hating, peer-baiting miserablist.

It's a relief, therefore, that 'Something Is Squeezing My Skull' is a powerhouse of a track that blasts away the cobwebs that have occasionally threatened to form around his settled backing band. It successfully combines the smutty side he revealed on Ringleader Of The Tormentors ("The motion of taxis excites me, when you peel it back and bite me") with a rant against artificial mood changers ("Diazepam as valium, temazepam, lithium, HRT, ECT, how long must I stay on this stuff?"), all backed by his rockiest sound since Your Arsenal. It ends less than three minutes after it starts, with a flurry of drums and Moz's best vocal tics since he yodelled with The Smiths on 'Rubber Ring'.


> Click here to read our review of Years of Refusal