Blur: The Magic Whip - review

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The Magic Whip

(Parlophone)

The Magic Whip is an unexpected late addition to Blur's discography. It follows the Britpop veterans' return to action with ejected guitarist Graham Coxon in 2009, a reunion that singer Damon Albarn pronounced over last year when he released a solo album.

Coxon is the reason for Blur's surprise reappearance. He and producer Stephen Street revisited some jams the band improvised during recording sessions in Hong Kong in 2013, fleshed them into songs and persuaded the rest of Blur to reconvene and work on them. The result is their first album since 2003's Think Tank, and the first since 1999's 13 to feature Coxon on guitar.

His touches are all over the album, from the Britpoppy riffs of opener "Lonesome Street" to the fuzzy squall of noise in "Go Out" and the subtle acoustic guitar roaming like a folk-rock ghost through the woozy sci-fi landscape of "Thought I Was a Spaceman", a standout. Meanwhile Albarn's presence is felt in the music's melancholy tint and excursions into dub-infused soul ("Ghost Ship") and east-meets-west balladry ("Mirrorball").

It doesn't compare with their heyday: there are too many glued-on choruses and scribbled-down lyrics, testament to the songs' origins in jamming. But the best tracks are engrossing, such as the rueful "Terracotta Heart" in which Albarn addresses his and Coxon's complicated relationship. Is it too much to hope The Magic Whip won't be Blur's last crack of the whip?

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