Blur’s two nights at Wembley Stadium on 9 and 10 July have already gained mythic status: even those who weren’t there have felt the ripples in the Britpop-time continuum. Three decades after their first love affair, there has been an oddly moving renewal of vows between the British public and their once-favourite band. And, although the atmosphere of those gigs was steeped in nostalgia – with Damon Albarn breaking off, as men of a certain age are wont to do, to reminisce about the friendship he forged with Graham Coxon “when I was 12 and you were 13” – here is a new album to prove that the band, who never split up, are not only in the business of looking back.
Except, of course, looking back is what Albarn does best. The reunion shows were a reminder that Blur’s greatest work is not represented by the tubthumping “Parklife” or “Song 2” but the songs that give Albarn’s melancholic sensibility full rein. The Ballad of Darren, their shortest album to date, is suffused with a sense of loss and yearning and is unmistakably the work of a man who recently described himself as a “certified sad 55-year-old”. It’s also the sound of a band who are back in the room together: Albarn has called this the “first legit Blur album” since 13 in 1999, given that Coxon barely contributed to Think Tank (2003), and The Magic Whip (2015) was assembled in piecemeal fashion. The Ballad of Darren new record has a cohesion and energy that places it among Blur’s best.
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