B000IAZ3E0
Parlophone
CD Review
Damon Albarn is, supposedly, the mastermind behind Blur, the Gorillaz and The Good, The Bad and the Queen (TGTBTQ) and other assorted music projects. There’s no question that his output is massively successful and very listenable.
Blur were brilliant (until Graham Coxon left). The Gorillaz singles are great, great pieces of intelligent pop. His African CD is supposedly fantastic, too. However TGTBTQ is not any of those.
Fun, inviting and modest are not verbs that should be used to describe TGTBTQ. It seems to be the sound like Albarn being overly self indulgent. His versions of whiney-shoe gazing soulless vocals cover the album, whilst a majority of the songs plod on with nowhere to go but exhaust the one or two ideas that stumble into. The whole thing sounds like they are too obsessed with the stitching in their shoes to actually take an interest in what they’re playing.
The lead single, Herculean, was no good: boring, instantly forgettable and drab. You’re hard pushed to recall what the song sounds like after numerous listens, and listening to History Song, the first song on the album; it would seem that Herculean set the tone for this album.
Some songs, such as Nature Springs, sound as if they wish to be chill out drum’n’bass numbers. They don’t quite achieve their desire and end up just annoying, slightly pretentious and a bit sad.
That’s not to say that there are not positive parts of the album. Paul Simonon’s bass delivers a brilliant lesson in dub throughout despite the songs. The bass is constantly the thing to listen out for, rather than the dull plod of the songs above. A lot of the intros and ideas do sound exciting and interesting though, it’s just that the songs themselves are so boring.
That’s not to say that there are not one or two wholly good songs involved. ‘80s Life opens with traditional doo-wop chords (think Blue Moon) and Albarns voice slowly comes charmlessly in with no balls, but a rather sweet melody. The eventual result is a rather bizarre Estuary interpretation of doo-wop, it is an enjoyable number.
Three Changes is more proof that the group are able to produce songs that are enjoyable. It is the first time that Tony Allen’s drums really stand out, and it we even get a bit of a groove by the whole band at the end of the song.
Behind The Sun should have been a great song. Again, Albarns half-arsed vocals do not do the intro a great thing, and the change of direction after around 40 seconds ruins what could have been a good swinging number.
There is a lot of misleading things on the album: the constant banging of the piano, for instance, to make it sound like the song is going to be a fun, jaunty number. It happens in a number of intros but never is the want satisfied. What the intro suggests like a picking up of pace and that something bright is coming; it is all suggested by the intro and all disappointed by the song.
The album can sound like an expansion on the ideas that are found in Blurs single The Universal. Blur cut him off after 1, but he’s found a way to record and sell these plodding fumbles of sound.
Maybe it is just the sound of his voice, slowly whining into the songs. Maybe it all the songs feel like they’re at the same volume and the same tempo all the way through. There are no glorious angry, fast, mid-tempo, humorous sounds to be heard. There is so little variety in the sounds and songs of the album. The songs have all got a very similar plod to them but the saving grace of it all is the bass and the occasional idea.
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