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

Year in Rock 2025

Alright, I've got some explaining to do. By now anyone who's visited this blog is well aware of how infrequently I've used this space in recent years; aside from the occasional fertile year of content, I really haven't posted all that often over the last five years or so. There are many reasons for this, which have already been outlined in previous apology posts; but, essentially, it boils down to my own laziness and the cold reality that blogs are, like Refused (again), fucking dead. So, I wouldn't hold my breath for a triumphant return to reviews, or even semi-regular posts, but: a) I feel like Year in Rock posts have always belonged here and, even though I've experimented with different methods of presentation recently and been satisfied, the "blink and you missed it" unveiling via Facebook stories this year was perhaps ultimately a disservice to the records I lauded. After all, cramming the list into short videos isn't too far off from ju...

Year in Rock 2011 Nominee: Sam Roberts Band

SAM ROBERTS BAND I Feel You From: Collider Released: May 10 Having already endured the breakout success ( Brother Down was Canada's it rock song of 2002), the tentative dabbling in the U.S. market, as is the rite of passage for all moderately successful Canuck artists (2003's debut We Were Born in a Flame was the best time to try; one of the best albums of the year, it made a small dent in the American mindset upon its release there a year later), the difficult, druggy third album (the aptly named 2005 disc Chemical City ), and the subdued creative step backward (2008's Love at the End of the World , aside from hit single Them Kids , was really kinda bland), it seems according to script that Sam Roberts would start settling in on his fourth album (and first with the band credited as equal contributors), Collider (you know, I think it was a bad idea to give me brackets). Well, as far as settling in goes, Roberts does and doesn't on Collider . W...

IN REVIEW: Rancid - "Trouble Maker"

As far as punk rock goes, it's hard to name a hotter hot streak than the trio of records Rancid cranked out between 1995 and 2000; the star making ...And Out Come the Wolves , the far-reaching Life Won't Wait and their balls-to-the-wall second self-titled album solidly positioned Rancid as leaders of the second generation of punk. It also preceded a period of slow progression, as Rancid would take eleven years to release their next three records. By the time ...Honor Is All We Know came in 2014, many fans (myself included) had to wonder whether or not this was the end of the road. Such concerns are handily dealt with on the closing track of the standard edition of their ninth record, the positively punishing This Is Not the End . Well, okay then, that's sorted. Now, what of this new record? What do we make of the use of their original logo on the cover, a logo that hasn't graced a Rancid record in 25 years? Is this a throwback to the band's heyday, a new begin...

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