Album review: Gorillaz

Published on Sunday 7 March 2010 20:15

GORILLAZ:PLASTIC BEACH **** PARLOPHONE, £12.99

DESPITE the joy of witnessing a reunited Blur last year, it is clear that singer Damon Albarn has moved on comprehensively from the job of fronting an indie pop band, even one as cherished as Blur. Gorillaz, the virtual band he created with artist Jamie Hewlett, has been a hugely successful progression and creative vindication for this once-maligned Britpop player.

But since the release of the second Gorillaz album, Demon Days, five years ago, Albarn has diversified again, forming the sublime supergroup The Good, The Bad & The Queen with Clash bassist Paul Simonon, among others, and composing an extravagant contemporary opera based on the Monkey legend.

Although it seems hard to credit, the first incarnation of Gorillaz' third album Plastic Beach was talked up as an even more ambitious film-cum-stage project called Carousel. Hewlett was bored drawing the same characters – 2D, Murdoc, Noodle and Russel – over and over again and composing an outlandish backstory of the group's exploits or conducting virtual promotional duties wasn't such a wizard wheeze anymore.

Fortunately for Albarn and Hewlett, the visuals have become less important as Gorillaz music has become more intoxicating. Demon Days, in particular, was the consummate 21st-century pop album. Albarn has touted this follow-up as "one of the most pop records I've ever made" – although the lack of an obvious catchy single and the hour-plus running time might have hamstrung that intention.

However, Plastic Beach is almost certainly the only pop album ever to have been inspired by the romance of a landfill site. Albarn was apparently interested in the contrasting attitudes to recycling which he witnessed in Mali and the UK. One can only imagine how he got from discarded ready-meal packets to a Snoop Dogg guest spot.

The environmental theme only filters through the lyrics as something of an afterthought, but Albarn has succeeded in fashioning something beautiful out of a load of musical flotsam and jetsam. For the sake of keeping up animated appearances, the cartoon musicians have been domiciled on the plastic beach of the title (looking suspiciously like Tracy Island on the album sleeve), where they go combing for consumer cast-offs.

They are joined by a wide-ranging miscellany of musicians from grime rapper Bashy to the Lebanese National Orchestra for Oriental Arabic Music (and that's just on one track), from chamber orchestra Sinfonia ViVA, though Swedish synth pop quartet Little Dragon, to the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, via a number of distinguished rappers and rockers.

Actor/rapper Mos Def has entered into the spirit of the Gorillaz game by playing the character of a beach vendor called Sun Moon Stars. We can only wonder what personas Barry Gibb and Una Stubbs – two of the most bizarre of the mooted collaborators – might have adopted if their contributions had ever come to fruition.

No-one else has come in fancy dress. Snoop Dogg just glides in long enough to anoint the album with his laid-back Californian hip-hop touch on Welcome To The World Of The Plastic Beach.

It's a crowded beach, but never as messy as you might expect. The single Stylo features Mos Def's muffled mutterings, Albarn's soulful beseeching and then some wonderful improvisation from soul legend Bobby Womack, who dominates but still feels underused. He pops up again later on Cloud Of Unknowing, a further meeting of old-school soul and new-school beats reminiscent of Gnarls Barkley.

White Flag features an oriental arrangement of the same Prokofiev piece sampled by Greg Lake on I Believe In Father Christmas, purposefully mismatched with the strident rapping of Kano and Bashy. In contrast, Superfast Jellyfish is a dinky meeting of nouveau hippy minds, featuring De La Soul and Super Furry Animals frontman Gruff Rhys, delivering a sensitive vocal which allows Albarn to put his feet up for one track.

Gorillaz have previously called upon the services of Shaun Ryder, but Plastic Beach offers a two-for-one deal on curmudgeonly reprobates with both Mark E Smith and Lou Reed lending their gruff services to glam synth boogie Glitter Freeze and the deadpan electro bubblegum of Some Kind Of Nature respectively. Rounding out the rock god complement are Mick Jones and Paul Simonon, who play on the woozy title track.

Despite all the guest activity, there is still room for Albarn to put his pop stamp on the album with some of the best tracks on offer, such as oceanic electro odyssey Empire Ants, the cutesy retro synth sounds of On Melancholy Hill and the careworn soul of Broken, all of which cut through the nebulous concept and provide this sprawling undertaking with some bewitching melodic focus.

CRITIC'S CHOICE

Alasdair Roberts Band/Kiila, The Links Hotel, Montrose, 13 March; Stereo, Glasgow, 14 March

The latest Tune Up tour partners the otherworldly archaic folk charms of Alasdair Roberts – accompanied by members of Tattie Toes and his previous band Appendix Out – with Kiila, a psychedelic folk sextet from Turku, Finland who have been compared to the blissed-out Espers. Following these two dates, the tour continues throughout Scotland. See www.tuneup.org.uk for details.

&#149 Tel: [phone] (Montrose), 0141-222 2254 (Glasgow)