The String Quartet Tribute to the Beatles

Album Review

While these are instrumental chamber arrangements of classic Smiths songs, the arrangements are still colored most by the hangdog melancholy of Morrissey, rather than any afterglow of Johnny Marr's guitar workouts. You can almost hear his self-obsessed croon floating behind the violins in "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out," "Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others," and "This Charming Man," while "How Soon Is Now" is revealed to be rather boring without Marr's classic guitar line. The Vitamin label has even done a respectable job of replicating the Smiths' famous cover-star album art, with its sepia boxer photo.