For just over three decades now, Blur has been taking the gray of England’s sky and painting it with bright and vivid brush strokes. Their discography bounces every which way as they have forged the path for future Brit-pop acts while continuing to redefine the genre. Despite their incremental release schedule with their first stretch without new music dating back to the eras between 1998’s 13 and 2003’s Think Tank, every time Blur decides to descend from their throne and deliver us new music feels like a parade-worthy event. This time around it has been eight years since Blur was back in the studio and their return comes in the form of The Ballad Of Darren, a ten-track outing tinged with soaring harmonies and colorful arrangements. The original lineup that began recording together back in 1991 still displays the same youthful excitement for chugging guitars with their chemistry seemingly unaffected by the long stints between studio sessions. The band has taken the concept of the ballad and morphed it to be undeniably Blur through swelling arrangements and moving vocal performances.
The first song on an album is able to set the tone for the rest of your listening experience, Blur made sure nothing was lost in translation on The Ballad Of Darren opener. “The Ballad” is a simple title for the universe the band built on this track, the slow burn of the arrangement sears your eyebrows once everything begins to melt over each other with the heaven-sent string arrangements forging this flame. The band used this formula on a majority of the LP, taking their time resolving any conflicts in the music while frontman Damon Albarn uses his vocals to push the songs along. The length of this LP might be one of its saving graces, while the band’s take on balladry is refreshing and all-encompassing of their decades of experience, the fact that each song is structured similarly could’ve easily become boring if they decided to create a lengthier album. Thankfully, Blur knew exactly when to cut the tracklist off so rather than these songs dragging on, they created a playground for them to experiment with tone and harmonies.
The Ballad Of Darren is consistent if anything but Blur is not a band that likes to sit in one area for too long. The album is able to make juxtaposing tones sound like they belong together, creating a conflict within the tracklist that is only resolved via Albarn’s poetry. The sinfully sweet “Russian Strings” with its beautifully dense harmonies and cinematic arrangement feels elevated after following the surf rock bounce of “Barbaric”. The album bounces between moods and tempos with ease, allowing Blur to experiment with the more nuanced elements of songwriting and explore the overlap between the Brit-pop the band has coined and other musical worlds at large. “Avalon” feels tinged with the dusty riffs of country thanks to Graham Coxon’s ever-growing understanding of the guitar while the single, “St. Charles Square”, harkens back to the guitar-driven grit of the band’s earlier work. Their ability to find consistency within the wide range of tones and subject matter gives The Ballad Of Darren a little more personality and allows Blur’s loftiest ideas to sound modern and honed.
For their first album since their critically acclaimed 2015 outing, Blur isn’t looking to impress anyone but themselves. The Ballad Of Darren has the band sounding as tight and crafted as the first time we heard from the Brit-pop trailblazers except this time around a sense of maturity rings through these 10 songs. A band with nothing left to prove explores the freedom of unfiltered creativity by reimagining something as timeless as the ballad. Blur took on the task of essentially reinventing the wheel and the result is a mesmerizing display of chemistry that birthed a collection of songs that, despite their consistency, hit a different part of your heart with each note played.
