Peter Murphy

Lion

Nettwerk

Street: 06.03

Peter Murphy = David Bowie + Morrissey

To compare Peter Murphy’s career now to those of fellow cult Brits is a bit pedantic, but there’s a similar way in which he and others have become camp parodies of themselves. Take this album’s second track, “I Am My Own Name,” where Murphy carves out a space for his own persona to hang, in Moz-like over-exaggerated self-reflexivity. Lion is full of bombastic, aggro-alt rock, finding the gothfather’s voice stretched about as far and wide as it can be (see lead single “Hang Up,” where he belts the words “Hagia Sophia” as a chorus ad nauseam). For a tenth solo album, it’s all Mr. Murphy and little Mr. Moonlight.