“mature melancholia spiked with adventure”
“The Ballad of Darren marks Blur’s triumphant return”
“There are few living songwriters who embody every creation they put out in the world like Blur’s Damon Albarn. At the second night of the band’s reunion shows at Wembley Stadium earlier this month, the band played their 2012 single ‘Under The Westway’, named after the underpass in west London that was standing a handful of miles away. After its finale, Albarn sobbed. Hard. The emotion of the night”
“Growing older can be sad, but Blur know that light arrives after darkness. Across 10 songs, you can hear them each trying to find it, hand in hand, harmony after harmony.”
“The Britpop icons contemplate middle-age turbulence and inertia on a meticulously polished reunion album.”
“With the multitude of music that Blur frontman Damon Albarn is plugged into, it’s no surprise that there are dashes of David Bowie that seep into the band’s first album in eight years. Specifically, it’s Bowie’s triumphant art-pop synthesis as perfected on Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) that reverberates in tracks such as ‘St Charles Square’ (which is unapologetically in debt to the vocal melod”
