Prior to the release of The Ballad of Darren, Damon Albarn described Blur’s ninth album as “a record that sort of delves into what it’s like to be 55”. But it seems more universal than that, drenched in the horror of realising that time has passed and continues to pass. There’s mourning for the years you’ve already lived and the feelings you’ve long since felt, and anxiety for the years and feelings yet to come. It seems to say that life is long until it’s not, that love is safe until it’s not, that the world is easy to exist in until it’s not: realisations that dawn again and again even in your younger years. Blur have always been capable of balancing tender introspection with lairy pop tunes and The Ballad of Darren, swooning and seasoned, is one of their very best.
In a year peppered with guitar-heavy albums that deal in very real mid-life grief – Queens of the Stone Age, Foo Fighters – Blur’s is a less specific, softer focus kind of anguish. For much of the record Albarn sings in his lower register like a washed-up lounge act, deep and simple and full of gorgeous regret. It makes lyrics that look like adolescent poetry on the page sound deeply profound: “I just looked out to the point / Where the words, they are hitting me / In a full-on assault,” he sings on opener The Ballad, a mirror ball-dappled, end-of-night lament. The peppy Barbaric is an exercise in denial – it reads like devastation and sounds like a day at the beach. Russian Strings is the most beautiful song you’ll ever hear about the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Relationships end, selves are reassessed, goodbyes are said and the future is eyed warily.
