REVIEW: Blur's "The Ballad of Darren" via Parlophone

Growing up I always knew Gorillaz but outside of the hits I was pretty late to the party. I didn’t listen to the cartoon band's full discography until the release of Humanz where my roommate at the time took me through a crash course of all their music. I never explored Blur though, I knew the two had the same singer and “Song 2” but that was about it. To be honest, whenever I listen to a new album by an older rock band I expect it to be bland and in Damon Albarn’s case I really didn’t expect much of this new record considering how I felt about Cracker Island.

On “The Ballad,” the almost-title track of Darren you get pretty much more of Cracker Island. This song sounds like you could have slapped it right on that Gorillaz record and that’s sort of how I feel about a lot of the songs here. Songs like “Faraway Island” not only share the record’s titular themes, but sort of feel like a lost chapter in the album’s narrative and share the exact sonics. I was already quite bored of the last Gorillaz record and really didn’t need a sequel to it from another band in the same year.

But when you get away from some of those songs, there’s actually a different side of Albarn here.

“The Ballad” isn’t a new song from Albarn sonically, but for me who isn’t overly familiar with his deeper catalog it's nice to hear something on an emotionally different level than the fictional narratives I’ve been used to. On here he sings a heartbroken love song with some pretty interesting backing vocals; a theme that continues later in the record. “St. Charles Square” is a rock song that sort of loses steam halfway through but is followed by the much stronger “Barbaric,” which I feel is the true kick off to what this record’s genre strength is. The single, “Narcissist,” opens with a great first lyric and keeps up that backing vocal effect I was speaking of earlier. In a sort of chorus-in-a-musical effect, the voices behind Damon do little more than reiterate his points, something that after first listen really worked on me. Then the final track, “The Heights” have a soul and emotion that really hits me hard on performance alone.

Looked in the mirror, so many people standing there

I walked towards them into the floodlights, I heard no echo

There was distortion everywhere, I found my ego

What I was expecting here was a bland rock record. What I found was a mix of a style I wasn’t crazy for to begin with but spliced in with some really interesting songs written by an artist I already admired. It probably helps here to have a consistent team backing him. If I’m being honest, I think I walk away a bigger fan of this record than even Cracker Island.

Our rating - 7/10

Favorite tracks:

1. The Ballad
2. St. Charles Square
3. Barbaric
4. Russian Strings
5. The Everglades (For Leonard)
6. The Narcissist
7. Goodbye Albert
8. Far Away Island
9. Avalon
10. The Heights

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