The Magic Whip Review.

“The Magic Whip “is the latest album from British band Blur after not making an album for over sixteen years together, the group of four are back with a rather good album that reminds me of albums like “13” and “The Great Escape”.

The album kicks of with a rather repetitive track named “Lonesome Street “that has a riff that reminds me of “Coffee And TV”, as this track finishes it goes into a rather psychedelic and slow track named “New World Towers”, with this album there’s no doubting that it’s a Blur album from Damon’s clear cut clever vocals to the slow riff’s from guitarists Alex James and Graham Coxon, the album keeps up with the weird slow psychedelic type theme with third track “Go Out”, the main theme in this album seem to be dislocation which is heard in opening track “Lonesome Street” ,this album shares genes with all previous blur albums, but it cant avoid being very different from their last album “Think Tank “released in 2003.

Sadly by track four “ice cream man “I was rather bored, this album to me isn’t an album you can really listen to in full, its an album that you have to listen in small chunks, but saying that “Ice Cream Man “reminds me of early Gorillaz music.

But then by track five and six the album picks itself back up with the classic Alex James bass riffs in “Thought I Was A Spaceman” and “I broadcast, “Which almost border on a cover of a David Bowie song, the start of “Thought I Was A Spacman”sounds like an Albarn solo track but with the guitar riffs from James and Coxon it somehow becomes a Blur track, the start of “I Broadcast “sounds like the theme song to super Mario bros, when I first listened to “I Broadcast “I couldn’t really compare it to any other bands because this track just screams Blur.

Again Blur are sticking to the psychedelic and dislocation theme throughout the duration of this album, these two songs are rather slow by the time you really get into these tracks they is only thirty seconds left of the song.

Although it has a awful name that I cant really pronounce personally the best two songs on the album for me has to be “Pyongyang “and “My Terracotta Heart “these two songs reminds me of old Brit pop Blur when they had an on going battle in the charts with Oasis, I can get these feeling again in songs like “My Terracotta Heart” which is again very Albarn solo stuff but with the help from James, Coxon and RownTree these two tracks become very Blur.

 The album then takes another weird twist with track “There Are Too Many Of Us “which reminds me of Albarn on his own with a marching band behind him, saying this the track isn’t all that bad when listening to what Damon is singing about, this track seems to make you think deeply about society in this day and age, another track that starts off rather weird but happens to me a good track is “Ghost Ship “the starting riff and riff throughout this song sounds very reggae and chilled out, which doesn’t really fit in with the track before.

Overall the last two tracks on this album are rather weak “Ong Ong”and “Mirorball”seem like tracks that have just been added to this album because the tracks that Blur already had weren’t long enough, this album isn’t bad at all its just very weird and to me the tracks don’t seem in the right order, the album jumps around from old Brit pop Blur, to Albarn on his own with just the other three members of Blur just kind of there in the background.