We’re living through the second summer of Britpop, according to the New Statesman magazine’s assessment of Pulp’s recent Dublin concert. Unlike the rest of the class of 1995, however, Blur aren’t just playing another victory lap of concerts with memorable stop-offs at Malahide Castle and Wembley Stadium; they’re also releasing their eighth studio album, The Ballad of Darren.
Contrary to my initial suspicions, the Darren of its title is not another of Damon Albarn’s Martin Amis-esque creations but a flesh-and-blood human being, Darren “Smoggy” Evans, who used to be the band’s bodyguard and still works for the singer. “Darren is many people,” Albarn explains. “It is directly one person.”
Coincidentally, one of the album’s melancholic themes appears to be friendship and the passage of time. The Ballad of Darren is easily Blur’s most grown-up album, shorn of the cartoonish caricatures of Parklife and The Great Escape. It is also their finest and most emotional offering since 13, in 1999.
Blur’s end-of-the-millennium masterpiece laid bare the collapse of Albarn’s relationship with Justine Frischmann. Now 55, Albarn sings on the chorus of Barbaric, “I have lost the feeling that I thought I’d never lose,” and states, bluntly, “All of us carry trauma.”
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Similarly The Narcissist appears to be a reflection both on modern life and the band’s dramatic career, as it’s hard not to think of Albarn’s own dalliance with heroin when he mentions addiction. The song features a gorgeous call-and-response duet with Graham Coxon. “I’ll shine a light in your eyes,” Albarn sings as Graham coos back “In your eyes.” It’s an acknowledgment that Blur are a little older and wiser. “But I won’t fall this time with Godspeed, I’ll heed the signs,” Albarn sings.
The Ballad of Darren ends with Albarn addressing an audience on The Heights, singing, “I’ll be standing in the front row next to you.” Coxon creates a wall of noise at the end of the song, which shudders to a sudden halt.
This late-career album is so good we can only hope that it isn’t a final full stop. In 2015 the band’s foppish bassist, Alex James, told me of the extraordinary lengths a band of their stature must go to in order to keep an album secret until its announcement, codenaming The Magic Whip “Project Miriam” and never discussing it or even vaguely referring to its existence in emails. The best part of a decade later, “Project Darren” is another pleasant surprise from the colourful chameleons of British pop who refuse to sit still.
