Early on in
The Ballad of Darren
, the unexpected and understated
Blur
reunion album,
Damon Albarn
sings "We have lost the feeling that we thought we'd never lose," a line that could easily be interpreted as the vocalist addressing his bandmates.
lost an intangible feeling during an acrimonious split in the early 2000s, the band limping forward after the departure of guitarist
Graham Coxon
during the sessions for
Think Tank
. Within a few years, the group tended to their lingering wounds, healing enough to play the occasional reunion concert, a union that eventually led to
The Magic Whip
, a happy accident of an album.
is something entirely different. Where
Coxon
crafted
from studio jams the band left behind after a week exiled in Hong Kong,
recorded
as a unit within the studio, shaping and coloring compositions
Albarn
wrote while on tour with
Gorillaz
in 2022. It's how
made records back in the '90s but, notably, the group replaced their mainstay
Stephen Street
with
James Ford
, a producer who has worked with
Arctic Monkeys
and
Florence and the Machine
, not to mention
.
Ford
teases out the louche, loungey aspects of
's songs, lending a lushness to the melancholy undercurrents that flow through
. Apart from "St. Charles Square," which announces itself with a flurry of guitar skronk and profanity, there's no direct evocation of
's younger days; far from conjuring the ghost of the melodramatic "To the End," the hints of hi-fi sophistication lend weary texture to melodies that sigh and linger.
spends the album pondering severed connections and vanished spaces, sentiments that could be read either as mourning a personal loss or as a meditation on a post-pandemic world, yet
doesn't feel precisely sad, not in the way
Damon
's solo albums often can.
gives
's songs depth and dimension, as
decorates the margins left by the elastic rhythms of
Alex James
Dave Rowntree
hinted at the essence of this chemistry but
revels in it, resulting in an album that feels age-appropriate without being stodgy: it's mature and nuanced, cherishing the connections that once were taken for granted but now seem precious. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine