"Thought I Found my black box" - (blur - The Magic Whip)

blur
The Magic Whip

why you'll love it: Vintage blur + modern Albarn chops

why you'll hate it: Won't win over any non-fans

Reunions sure are en-vouge this decade, huh?  So much that announcements are now being met with a diminished response.  After years of teasing, blur seemed to get bunched in with that tepidness when The Magic Whip started to become a reality.  In the face of nostalgia fatigue, The Magic Whip is one trip fans should certainly take.

Blur is no stranger to a crowded scene.  In the 90's, their bratty sardonic take on Great Britain's class gap was often imitated.  Blur played a big role in keeping British music relevant throughout the 90s.  Sensations like "britpop" and a rivalry with Oasis seemed drummed up by a media machine they had no interest in appeasing.  An attitude made clear at the turn of the century, with the experimentation in blur's last two albums, and the rise of Damon Albarn's (singer) collaboration, Gorillaz.

Those last few years of change made it tough to predict what kind of sound blur would go for in 2015.  I can't help but think they made the perfect decision.  The Magic Whip has the perfect mix of 90's quick witted indie-pop and the high production melodrama of their later years.  I'm a fan of Think Tank (2003), blur's divisive last album.  It was made without founding guitarist, Graham Coxon, and had plenty of Gorillaz-like electronic and dance influences.

Thankfully, Coxon's return didn't sway the band away from these songwriting ideals.  The Magic Whip is drenched in otherworldly production.  "Go Out" has a driving beat kept fresh with frayed ends coming off every strum.  On an album rife with ballads, each with a memorable gimmick, it's "My Terracotta Heart"'s underwater-like mix that makes it my favorite.  Songs like "Lonesome Street" and "I Broadcast" have a delivery straight out of Parklife (1994), but a futuristic synth punch-up.

Few pop experiments on here miss their mark.  "Ice Cream Man" has lyrics just a hair too silly.  Combined with a maudlin delivery, and goofy synth loop, the song is a boggling concoction.  All ideas that have worked well in the past for blur, but not together here.  "Thought I Was A Spaceman" has lyrics a little too on the nose, but would have been a standout on the last (and least) Gorillaz album, Plastic Beach.  Uplifting summer beach pop thrives on "Ghost Ship" and "Ong Ong".  These songs could have easily nosedived into Erlend Øye like pretentiousness, or Jimmy Buffet laziness, but blur walks that line with precision.

The Magic Whip will be a personal album of the year contender, and I'm not even a huge blur fan.  Every song just has so much character that it's a hard album to forget.  The far east notes in "Pyongyang", the blunt delivery of "There Are Too Many of Us"... Every song has something worth coming back to enough times for the whole 12 track affair (not a single one worth skipping).  Albarn's songwriting has improved so much with Gorillaz.   It's great to have it brought back home.