Illegal Foreign Object

Damon Albarn sprints around like a comet circling an ever-expanding black hole. Fearful of allowing a single patch of moss to grow on his person, he flitters about endlessly, releasing album after album, immersing himself in myriad projects.

Blur co-founder and guitarist Graham Coxon is no different in this respect. His breadth of work is astounding. In seemingly all other ways, however, they couldn’t be more opposites. This fact makes the band’s most recent release, The Ballad Of Darren, all the more stunning. It feels like love (even when the subject matter is decidedly broken-hearted).

Millionaire artistry isn’t a given, and the musical landscape is littered with bands that got rich and fed up with each other. The fact that all four original members still comprise Blur to this day is borderline amazing. Sure, there’s been a hiatus or three (and plenty of side projects), but their willingness to extend each other the necessary grace to carry on as a collective entity is heartening.

With The Ballad Of Darren (a nod to longtime bodyguard Darren “Smoggy” Evans, who continually bugged Albarn to finish the 2003 demo that became “The Ballad”), the band has recaptured some old magic while never leaning too heavily on nostalgia. Of course, it sounds like Blur (what else would you expect), but it’s also a band that has, in many ways, become what it once mocked on songs like “Country House”. It can’t be easy to navigate those waters while retaining your credibility.

Though the band’s not been playing much together over the last eight years, they have continued to release music individually. The expansiveness of their collective tapestry of sound is evident throughout. Coxon, in particular, shines on this record. His acerbic Johnny Marr meets My Bloody Valentine meets Dinosaur Jr. meets Krautrock sound is on display throughout.

There’s a melancholy — a nostalgic peering over the shoulder to The Ballad Of Darren. “I just looked into my life/And all I saw was that you’re not coming back,” croaks Albarn on “The Ballad”. Maybe it’s about a girl or a friend; perhaps it’s about all the time that has passed. The sadness in the music resonates. It also tracks — Albarn wrote most of the songs in hotels while touring the U.S. with Gorillaz. Even the “Country Sad Ballad Man”-like stomper “St. Charles Square” has at least as much forlornness as ferocity. And so it goes with Blur. The band that never split (but has done a helluva job of staying away from each other). There’s a lot of rediscovery on this album — some of it a kind of rekindled love for one another (while remaining fully aware that things are different). Still, when Damon sings, “I fell in love with you/You fall, and I’ll fall along with you,” Graham croons back, “I met you at an early show/We traveled ’round the world together”. These words feel like brothers letting their guards down — finally saying all the good things that needed to be said.

On The Ballad Of Darren, the listener must allow room for a bit of a midlife crisis (because it’s certainly present in many songs). As someone (hopefully) around the midway point of life, I understand the siren call of the look back. Frank Zappa once said, “It isn’t necessary to imagine the world ending in fire or ice. There are two other possibilities: one is paperwork, and the other is nostalgia.” I get where he was coming from, but I also have to acknowledge that there’s something about getting into your late forties and early fifties — time becomes something you begin to wrestle with (even unconsciously). “Many ghosts alive in my mind/Many paths I wish I’d taken.” 

With age comes loss, and The Ballad Of Darren is full of it. People who have always just been there suddenly aren’t. Albarn is often both at his best and his worst when he’s wearing his heart on his sleeve. When it works (“Oh, glorious world/Oh, potent waves, valleys gone wild/Connect us to love/And keep us peaceful for awhile”), it’s beautiful in its softened experience. Once a snarling brat only too happy to wage war with rival bands, Albarn now wears his age well. On The Ballad Of Darren, the band (Albarn and Coxon, in particular) seems to have taken the long way around to find each other again. The results are some of the most touching songs of the band’s storied career.

Track List:

1. The Ballad 10/10
2. St. Charles Square 9/10
3. Barbaric 9/10
4. Russian Strings 9/10
5. The Everglades (For Leonard) 8/10
6. The Narcissist 10/10
7. Goodbye Albert 7/10
8. Far Away Island 8/10
9. Avalon 8/10
10. The Heights 9/10
11. The Rabbi* 7/10
12. The Swan* 9/10
13. Sticks And Stones* 8/10

Grade: 85

*Bonus tracks included on the Deluxe Edition.