Blur – The Ballad of Darren review

September, 1993. A furious, London-living quartet are being interviewed by the Melody Maker’s Stud Brothers in a pub near Stamford Bridge, the home of Chelsea football club. Their singer is pouring scorn on all things American, particularly Grunge and specifically, Nirvana. “What have they got to say for themselves?” he demands, “I’m fucked up. Fantastic.”

Blur have come a long way since the slightly queasy sounding hubris of then (the piece’s title was “Our culture is under siege”), the three decades which have elapsed since then a shooting gallery of life experiences. The opening line of their most recent single St. Charles Square even Damon Albarn admitting “I fucked up/I’m not the first to do it”, a confession that left him sharing ground with old adversaries no longer with us.

The album it comes from is built on observations made from this distance, full of glances in the rear view mirror at the band’s career but more poignantly at the people who’ve lived in it’s orbit. Musically familiar influences like Bowie, Ray Davies and Robyn Hitchcock sometimes pervade, but on songs like opener The Ballad the mournful piano and Graham Coxon’s harmonies have warmth and simplicity, whilst Avalon and Goodbye Albert offer differing types of middle-aged succour.

The Ballad of Darren finishes abruptly, closer The Heights seemingly about to soar to one of those archetypal Blur-esque finales, before being flicked off like a switch. As this album of world-weary but loveable songs proves however, the trouble with ghosts is that they’re much harder to banish than the living. It’s fucked up. But kind of fantastic.

You can read a full review here.