"Fever Dreams Pts 1-4" : Johnny Marr's new release

Towards the end of the writing process for Fever Dreams Pts 1-4, Johnny Marr was struggling with a song idea but couldn’t nail it: it was too mannered, too indirect. He began thinking of songwriters who wrote, unmediated, from their heart, and he came up with two names: Bob Marley and John Lennon. Understandably feeling he couldn’t credibly “pull off” a Tuff Gong vibe, he instead transported himself into a Lennon mindset, and out flowed a composition called Human, a stirring acoustic meditation — before swelling into a glistening darkwave behemoth — that opened up about the pain that he, and we, so often disguise from the world. Later that day, with mind-bending synchronicity, a package from none other than Yoko Ono turned up at his house containing 2021’s Plastic Ono Band remaster. “A sign if ever there was one,” he notes.

If we are going to take Fever Dreams' title literally, then Human, the closing track, represents the delirium finally passing after over 70 minutes of otherwise full-on, ultra-modern electro-rock. Conceived to reflect the inward journey that Marr experienced during Covid lockdowns, here sequencers, doomy synths and strident dancefloor beats boldly augment the angular post-punk guitar sounds of his three 2010s albums — The Messenger, Playland and Call The Comet — as Johnny explores an unsettling interior universe.

In the best traditions of English psychedelia — and the hypnagogic, immersive feel of this album certainly justifies that description — childhood and memory play a strong part in the hallucinogenic narratives, not least in the eerie spoken-word intro to Rubicon (“Just to understand like a child/All the pictures in your mind...”) and in feisty fuzz-rocker Tenement Time’s evocations of Marr running wild as a boy in Manchester’s inner-city slums.

Musically, too, you’ll detect subtle echoes of the guitarist’s past, from opener Spirit, Power And Soul sounding a little like Johnny’s teenage guitar tutor Billv Duffy (of Cult renown) chiming, goth-like, over a Dead Or Alive track, to the punchy Receiver attacking at disco tempo the icy melody of Joy Division’s A Means To An End.

Counter-Clock World — taking lockdown’s temporal weirdness as its theme — skitters along cheekily, like a lost ’80s Pete Shelley solo track.

Perhaps the greatest advance of Fever Dreams — whose sonic grandeur, it’s tempting to think, links to Marr’s work with Hans Zimmer on the latest Bond soundtrack — is the guitarist’s voice, now matured into a wise, reassuring and increasingly characterful baritone. But — and it’s a big ‘but’ — while tracks like The Whirl, Receiver, Sensory Street and Human are among Marr’s most impressive, Fever Dreams is too long, uniform and persistent to enjoy in one sitting. Perhaps best, then, to take your time and discover its sparkling delirium in its 4 x 12-inch singles form.

MOJO - April 2022