More about: The SmithsJohnny Marr

Johnny Marr has announced on Twitter that his third solo album is to be called Call The Comet. While no release date has been confirmed, the former Smiths guitarist is urging fans to sign up at his website to keep up to date.

Call The Comet comes three years after the release of his second solo album, Playland, and a year since Marr declared that work had started on the record.

Last year, Gigwise quoted the guitarist as saying that the new album was, “…a certain kind of attempt at making a connection with an overwhelming barrage of seemingly surreal events and information and how we’re all dealing with it – and how I’m dealing with it really. It’s a psychedelic world out there, whether we like it or not, and not in a good way.”

He also added that music had a responsibility to reflect the events of the outside world.

“I don’t agree with this idea that pop music, culture or any of the arts shouldn’t tamper with politics,” he said. “If you’ve got something to say, you should say it. If you’ve got a platform, and a way of saying it then by all means do so. On the one hand, I don’t really believe in hectoring people, but things are so serious and so extreme that a little bit of hectoring and a little bit of passion might not be such a bad thing.

“It’s not really a time for being meek and sitting on the fence, but that’s everybody’s own personal choice."

Marr has been good on his word. Last December, the guitarist worked with actress Maxine Peak for the haunting yet hard-hitting collaboration, ‘The Priest’. Based upon characters created by writer Joe Gallagher and his experiences of being homeless, ‘The Priest’ was one of the most haunting and powerful pieces that Johnny Marr has been involved with for some time.

Here’s hoping for more of the same.

More about: The SmithsJohnny Marr