The Britpop titans reflect on middle age in their first album since 2015.
Photo: Reuben Bastienne-Lewis
Damon Albarn seems like such a busy guy, (having just released an album under the Gorillaz banner), that a second Blur reunion, after their first in 2009, seemed unlikely. But in late 2022 the band announced they’d be performing at Wembley stadium, and around six months later released the first single from their first album in eight years, The Ballad of Darren.
Their previous two, Think Tank, and The Magic Whip, were marked by the absence of guitarist Graham Coxon, and a rushed gestation, respectively. This one really does feel like a late-career return to form; the album might not be one of their best, but some of its songs certainly are.
That song ‘Barbaric’ begins with the kind of drum machine that might characterise a Gorillaz track, but by its end Blur have recaptured the kind of weary romanticism they honed on their 1994 album Parklife. I don’t get a sense of trying to recapture past glories though, mainly because it feels so effortless, and confident.
Apparently the record started as demos Albarn had made with one of his other projects in mind, but this is unmistakably Blur, thanks largely to Coxon’s distinctive playing and reedy backing vocals, and the sudden swell of strings near the song’s end.
It’s that stately kind of grandeur the band does so well, with a highpoint being Parklife’s ‘This is a Low’, and it’s present here on another standout called ‘The Narcissist’.
My favourite Blur album is the one where they were falling apart: 13 was made in the shadow of Albarn’s breakup with Justine Frischmann of Elastica, when he was allegedly using heroin, and Coxon was let loose by producer William Orbit to be as noisy as he pleased. It’s a shambles, but that’s why it’s so exciting.
The Ballad of Darren by comparison is restrained and polished, but maybe that’s appropriate for a group of men in their mid-fifties. The one track here to raise a racket is ‘St Charles Square’, a song-length nod to David Bowie's 'Scary Monsters'. It gets by on propulsive riffs and well-placed shrieks, but I think it was wise to keep this sort of thing to a minimum.
Final song ‘The Heights’ has noise throughout, guitar and otherwise, but it’s the mix of Albarn’s torch-song crooning with a spiky, staccato rhythm section and insistent strings that makes it work, familiar elements rearranged in a way that feels surprisingly vital.
The first words on the album are Albarn singing "I just looked into my life and all I saw was that you’re not coming back". He apparently just split from his partner of twenty five years, and there are lyrics throughout alluding to this, but the persistent undercurrent of wistfulness on The Ballad of Darren feels more about age-related ennui.
That title is a nod to Albarn’s long term bodyguard, and I appreciate how unserious it is, but it’s hard not to notice that ‘Darren’ is just a few letters shy of ‘Damon’. In 2023, presumed wealth aside, Blur feel much more put-upon than they used to, with various addictions in the rearview, and a lot of hard won wisdom. The best thing I can say about the album is that its music reflects that.
