Five years after releasing Years of Refusal, ex-Smith frontman Morrissey is back with an 18-track album titled World Peace is None of Your Business. That’s the deluxe version, find you. 12 tracks for the regular release.

The new offering from 55 year old Morrissey is anything but stale. In fact, I’d say it has more daring instrumentation than he’s had in quite a while. It is still definitely a Morrissey record, though. Which might be the problem in itself.

His voice is in soaring shape, airily floating over the mostly-acoustic and percussion-driven tunes. The first real ear-catcher is “Neal Cassidy Drops Dead”, with crunchy staccato guitars (sort of reminiscent of Green Day’s “Brain Stew”) and big, groovy, roomy drums. Spanish influenced guitar lines intersect the big rock sound.

From here, World Peace is None of Your Business stays on a mellow groove throughout the rest of the album. “Istanbul” is a beautiful layered tune with some gritty blues riffs and Morrissey’s signature descriptive lyrics. Next is “Earth is the Loneliest Planet”, which once again brings beautiful melodies and intricate guitar & drum work.

Clearly Morrissey is coming out more calculated on this release. In 2009, Years of Refusal was much more rock and much more straight forward. This time around, the big rock sound makes way for the more jangly “classic” Morrissey… even songs like “One of Our Own” sounds like something he would have done in the early 90’s. I personally would have enjoyed something more aggressive.

Bottom Line: If you’re a fan of the Smiths-era singer, or maybe his early solo records, then you will almost certainly appreciate World Peace is None of Your Business. If you’re like me and gravitate towards albums like You are the Quarry and Years of Refusal, then this new collection of songs will satisfy but probably leave you lingering a bit.

Rating: 7.5/10