Pop tunes you can dance to? They have those. “Every generation has its gilded poseurs,” sings Albarn, with bored affection. Coxon is on sour, chunky form, while Albarn combines mock-horror screaming about “something down here… living under the floorboards” with a quipped aside of “Tesco disco!” (It’s an old band in-joke about a Tesco Metro opening near a former flat of James’s.) They succeed in making what is now presumably a very nice west London location sound louchely disreputable.
While there is no call for the aggro of their Britpop heyday, the scenes that had Evans hauling Albarn out of the grip of gig audiences, the lairiest track here, St Charles Square, makes plain Blur’s connection to their younger selves – and to David Bowie. It’s a love song, but when Coxon sings “we travelled around the world together” on backing vocals, it’s all too easy to transfer some of these loving words over to Blur themselves. Almost out of nowhere, Albarn pulls the emotional rug from under an already tear-jerking songįor those wondering, the Darren of the title is Darren “Smoggy” Evans, Blur’s longtime bodyguard, who consistently nagged at Albarn to finish a 2003 demo that has now become The Ballad – a graceful opening track that audibly cranks the band back into action with a whirr. It’s an album that often looks back, while summoning textures and nuances that only add to their toolkit.
This swiftly wrought record, which James has compared to a surprise baby (“ we didn’t know we were pregnant, and we gave birth in a supermarket car park”) finds late-life Blur on eloquent, emotional form. And yet, eight years on from their satisfying, if less pressing, last reunion album, The Magic Whip, Blur have produced a record that packs no little excitement.
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