IN REVIEW: Blur - "The Magic Whip"

Conceived during a five day stretch of jams in a Hong Kong hotel and shaped into an album over a year later, it's no surprise that Blur's first album in a dozen years is a bit of a hodgepodge. However, this group has always been populated by talented men with diverse taste, so that would be expected if not assumed. It also stands to reason that, with all the musical endeavors undertaken by the group's members in the wake of their dissolution (especially Damon Albarn and Graham Coxon), perhaps The Magic Whip would bear marks of a dozen years' worth of new inspirations.

In truth, The Magic Whip feels like a somewhat logical next step from 2003's Think Tank (or, in Coxon's case, 1999's 13), albeit a next step that's firmly rooted in the cold urban isolation that comes from spending a week or so away from home surrounded by neon and bustling metropolis. Much of the album's songs are layered with assorted noise as an allusion to the impossibility of silence in an urban sprawl, as evidenced by the continuous squeak and whir of lead single Go Out or the low buzz of Thought I Was a Spaceman among others.

As is the case with most of Blur's records, The Magic Whip deals more in deep-seeded payoffs than immediacy. Although, the immediate tracks are straight up thrilling here; the urban jangle of Lonesome Street and the propulsive hard rocker I Broadcast both waste no time going to your head. Speaking of which, the warped, chiming thumper Ice Cream Man might be the weirdest song that gets stuck in your head for days this year.

More often than not, though, the songs make use of subtle charm and confident sonic interplay to get the job done. Check out My Terracotta Heart's gradually unfolding majesty, the claustrophobic, orchestral There Are Too Many Of Us and the sinister, elastic Pyongyang on the album's second half to hear how that's done.

When a band goes away from recording for a long time, there's usually a modicum of apprehension on behalf of listeners going into that long awaited new album. It's a fine line these bands have to straddle; change too drastically and risk cries of "that's not (band name here)!", change too little and risk cries of "we've heard this before!". It's a seemingly thankless position to be in for a band, and Blur deals with the expectations by casting absolutely none upon themselves. The Magic Whip is a loose, piecemeal record, one that makes no attempt at chart domination or wild experimentation; it's comfortable being an album in the purest sense, a pooling together of twelve songs they had ready to go.

While their experimental tendencies have yet to result in a truly great album post-Parklife, they also haven't released a bad one. Of all the traditions that could have been upheld after twelve years between albums, that's the most obvious one present on The Magic Whip. It doesn't cement or sully their legacy, it just exists as an extension of it. Whether it acts as a proper relaunching point for the band or their footnote remains to be seen, but in either case it's a worthy addition to their catalogue.

April 28, 2015 • Parlophone/Warner

Highlights Lonesome Street • I Broadcast • Pyongyang