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Back to: Archive · 2007 'The Good, The Bad & The Queen' reviewed. From cdreviews.com, 25 January 2007. By Danny Neill. And so the first highly anticipated album of the year arrives at the table; a new project by Blur front man Damon Albarn which finds him teaming up alongside The Clash's Paul Simonon on bass, The Verve's Simon Tong on guitar and afro-beat king Tony Allen on drums. To top off the mouth watering cocktail the producer is none other than 2006's ubiquitous Danger Mouse, the man behind Gnarls Barkley don't forget! With Albarn composing once more to suit a traditional four-piece set up, the word in advance has been talking of a return to his Britpop heyday in Blur on a record that gives a more than cursory nod towards Parklife. The reference to that mid 90s work is both misleading and accurate. This record is far too bleak and melancholy to the extent that any punter buying this expecting a return to the beer fuelled laddish hedonism and modish undertones of Damon's pop past will be left sorely confused and probably disappointed. On the other hand, here is a record that lyrically relights the rich vein of observational writing on everyday life in modern day England that, twelve years ago, saw Albarn compared favourably to The Kinks' Ray Davies; not just that but by his own admission he has returned here to resonant keyboard and organ sounds abandoned on his own recordings for more than a decade. Multicultural Britain is a hot potato in the news this week, what with a huge racism row exploding over a blessed reality TV show! The Clash were always a band who readily reflected this side of the culture, particularly in the way they bridged the gap between punk and reggae, so with Simonon's heavy presence that thread is continued here. It's all there in the way these, at times simple, songs swerve randomly into dub or reggae grooves. Despite the fact that these tunes rarely let off steam, they're all chilled yet progressively flowing pieces, Simonon's bass still manages to propel with the same restless energy you heard in his Clash days; that bottom end of the mix is shooting off little bazooka fireworks all over the place! It's not really until the closing title track that you're hit with the sound of the entire band cutting loose on a frenzied finale. Right back at the start they resolve to go for the slow burning effect rather than the full-on assault; that said "History Song" plays like a self assured mission statement with its "if you don't know it now then you will do" refrain. There's an overwhelming amount of dark grey introspection and a busload of wet, bleak UK images flashing through your mind; but could you ever imagine "standing by the old canal, by the gasworks, celebrate the ghosts flow by when all love hurts" sung from a sunny disposition? Then when struck by stand out moments such as "I don't want to live a war that's got no end in our time" you know full well the pictures this band are painting to be a precise viewpoint of the world we live in today. For all the differing aspects that have been thrown into the melting pot, the show belongs to the man Albarn in the end. He's got a knack at bringing optimism to the sadness in his work that is impossible to dissect. With the swirling strings and lovely dreamy avenues you visit on a track like "Behind The Sun" you just have to bow down to the joyful response it triggers in your senses. Revisit Blur's This Is A Low for proof that he's possessed this gift for years. What with the phenomenal success of the Brit-hop massive Gorillaz, not to mention other side projects like the Mali Music excursion and his under-the-radar Democrazy solo album of a couple of years ago, Damon Albarn is indisputably the musical renaissance man of the new millennium. The only question left is what of Blur now? Whatever their fate though, the end result here is a unified song-suite that stands as a vivid snapshot of life in the UK right now and an early contender for one of the albums of the year. |