^^I agree with Late Night Maudlin Street. To me, lyrically, it's very Smiths-like. I wonder how much of Viva Hate was conceived lyrically prior to the Smiths split, considering the timing of it's release...
Viva Hate is a very Smiths-like album in every way. It's not like Morrissey made some big radical shift in the music. Stephen Street said he wrote the tunes and gave them to Morrissey expecting them to be B-sides to Smiths singles (that was at the time when Marr had already left, but the future of the band was still unsure).
I'm guessing that, when people say that Viva Hate is Smiths-like lyrically, what they mean that some themes that have become associated with The Smiths, such as troubled adolescence and unrealized first love, are dominant on the album. This is the album where Morrissey was mostly looking back into his adolescence and the 1970s.
But, let's say if The Smiths had not split, what would their subsequent albums be like? Lyrically, they would pretty much be the same. It's not like anyone from the band ever could influence or change Moz's lyrics. Maybe he would be more inspired by some tunes than by some others, but that's all. (Well, of course there would not have been 'songs' like Sorrow Will Come In The End...
) Musically, there could be a difference in quality - which does not mean that there aren't quite a few Morrissey solo songs which are brilliant musically; but people tend to overlook it. Yeah, Alain Whyte and Boz Boorer aren't Johnny Marr, but they are still very good and very underrated composers, although Johnny and Morrissey were one of greatest songwriting teams ever and a creative chemistry like that can't be replaced. So, Johnny and Morrissey might have written more great songs, although I really doubt that they could have kept up the pace - if the band existed for 25 years rather than 5, sooner or later they would produce some average albums, as it happens with every band that exists so long and doesn't wait 5 or 10 years between releases. And would there have been a big change of direction, musically? I doubt that. Morrissey would not want to contribute vocals to the music he didn't like, and the band couldn't record that many instrumentals, so practically, he could put an end to any change of musical direction that he would disapprove of. Besides, despite what some people might say, a singer certainly
is a musician, and Morrissey influences the music considerably.