In January this year, Damon, Alex, Dave and Graham came together at Damon’s West London studio to discuss the possibility of recording a new album. No-one in that room could have imagined what was to follow…
Six months; one surprise album announcement; 10 songs; 4 tiny warm-up shows; one lost (and found) gold tooth; a knee injury; two transcendent Wembley Stadium shows; one newly-famous Scottish lido; a global livestream; one European tour seen by 2 million fans; and one critically-acclaimed studio album later… blur have topped the charts once again eith their new album “The Ballad of Darren”
A divorce album in all but name, “The Ballad Of Darren” strikes a similar melancholic chord as “13”, the turn-of-the-millennium album from Blur. The difference of nearly 25 years makes a considerable difference: there’s a collective heft to the album that stems from a band that reconvenes with the knowledge of their strengths and weaknesses, a group that recognizes their peculiar chemistry. After dispensing with the barbed rush of “St. Charles Square,” Blur spends the rest of the record floating on a melancholy sea, never succumbing to its sad undercurrent but always aware of its undertow.
Damon Albarn is not one to rest on his laurels and so, when Blur agreed to this summer’s rapturously-received pair of Wembley Stadiums shows, he quietly began work on what would become Blur’s ninth studio album, later bringing the band and producer James Ford in to finish and record ‘The Ballad of Darren’ in a matter of months.
As such, there’s an easiness to these songs that comes from four childhood friends acting on chemistry and instinct, buoyed by an innate understanding of each other’s musical quirks. A band with a legendary knack for elegiac, suckerpunch ballads, ‘…Darren’ is bursting with the sort of melodies that only Albarn could concoct (plus a glorious wink to their cranky, rowdy side in ‘St. Charles Square’), all held aloft by a quartet who proved they could still make magic, all these years later.
the new album ‘The Ballad Of Darren’
The Fat Angel Sings 