Johnny Marr is more than three decades removed from the breakup of The Smiths – the legendary rock band that brought Marr to fame and toted his jangly guitar riffs and stellar songwriting alongside his bandmates. After stints with Modest Mouse and The Pretenders, Marr has amassed four solo albums in the last decade. The best of these albums is compiled on Spirit Power, a compilation of twenty four songs of Marr’s solo material that showcases melodic songwriting with stellar insrumentation.
Marr gives us hints of what fans love about the Smiths on Spirit Power – airy acoustic guitars, catchy vocal passages and moody atmospheres. “New Town Velocity” and “Somewhere” are just this. Same with “Hi Hello,” which is packed with catchy melodies on the chorus and verses. These tracks are spacious and atmospheric – backed by acoustic guitar and overlapped with chord progressions on the electric guitar. This atmosphere is further built upon on “The Messenger,” which is soaked in haunting guitar tones, metallic drum sounds and an incredible guitar passage.
Marr picks up the pace on “Night and Day,” “Spiral Cities,” and “European Me.” On the latter, the washed out lead vocals and elongated refrain on the chorus create an incredibly euphoric listen. Marr does not falter on these harder tracks, as the songwriting stays punchy and the electric guitars are used tastefully.
Synths are also incorporated all over this project. The blaring, repeating chord progression on “Sensory Street” is aggressive and gritty. The backing synth runs on the opener, “Armatopia,” and “Spirit Power and Soul” and “Easy Money,” create a tapestry that brings the guitars and drums into the mix seamlessly. The refrain on “Easy Money” is simple but incredibly catchy, as Marr repeats, “I used to want it all / And that’s money, money / That’s money, money.”
The two duds in this tracklist, “I Feel You” and “Upstarts,” fall short of the instrumental and songwriting consistency of Spirit Power. The vocal chops on “I Feel You” are great, but the heavy drums and repeated heavy guitar riff feel like Marr is forcing an attempt at something that is out of his wheelhouse. “Upstarts,” rather, is a stripped back rocker with conventional and straightforward songwriting that lacks the instrumental layering of his best tracks.
Otherwise, Marr plays to his strengths on the majority of these tracks while still providing an array of instrumental palettes. The classic Smiths sound runs throughout Spirit Power and the inclusion of synths on many of these tracks is a tasteful nod to many of The Smiths’ contemporaries. Spirit Power is moody, catchy and consistent, as even the demos at the end of the tracklist hold up in comparison to their originals.
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