Though Damon Albarn will forever be synonymous with the youthful jamboree that was Britpop, he has long had a sliver of middle age in his soul. Early Blur tracks such as Tracy Jacks and End of a Century pulsated with midlife ennui even though Albarn was not yet 30 when he wrote them – he was a young man who could feel autumn creeping into his bones.
Given that a thread of “is this all there is?” woe has long rippled through his work, it should come as no surprise that the now 57‑year‑old should have a lot to say about life’s bigger questions as his grumpy old man years arrive in earnest.
The painful unravelling of a long‑term relationship provided the stark backdrop to Blur’s 2023 LP, The Ballad of Darren – which left everything hanging out on the dissolute St Charles Square, a divorced‑dad dirge that spared nobody, Albarn least of all. It’s one of the great recent break‑up songs in which being thrown back into singledom is portrayed not as an opportunity or a tragedy, but as just another reminder that life gets more tricky as you get closer to 60.
Two years later, Albarn is back in the cockpit of Gorillaz – the side project that swallowed Blur – and reckoning with the death last year of his father. The Mountain is a beautifully tender and introspective affair that employs Indian spirituality as a filter for his emotional pain while taking care not to tip into pastiche or appropriation. While it gazes past western music for inspiration, it never sounds like the meanderings of a tourist. Rest assured, this is not Britpop goes Bollywood.
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The Mountain is a record with a sad smile plastered to its face – it is full of pain, yet open to the possibility of joy and the appreciation of the small things in life. A bittersweet centre point is The Happy Dictator, a collaboration with Californian pop oddballs Sparks that uses their melodic eccentricity as a launch pad for an ascent into epic prog‑pop.
Gorillaz began life as a collaboration between Albarn and his then‑housemate, artist Jamie Hewlett. They’ve had their ups and downs across the decades, but have been lately united in grief, with Hewlett’s father passing away just 10 days after Albarn’s. A horrible symmetry hangs over their recent losses in other ways too. Hewlett had been in Jaipur, India, when his mother‑in‑law had a stroke. Meanwhile, Albarn’s response to the passing of his father was to go to Varanasi in the north of the country to scatter his father’s ashes.
Given the context, it is no surprise that the shadow of death has left its fingerprints all over – with many of its contributors cameoing from beyond the grave. They include Afrobeat great Tony Allen and The Fall’s Mark E Smith, who lends his unhinged cackle to Delirium. But the living have been invited too – post-punk Idles bring their tender-hearted aggression to The God Of Lying while Johnny Marr’s quicksilver indie guitars feature on four tracks.
Amid all these high points, it is important to recognise that Albarn’s take on life and death is not always assured. He risks triteness on the tune that most directly references his father, Orange County – where he notes, “the hardest thing is to say goodbye to someone you love”.
There’s a whiff of the Hallmark inscription about the observation – it doesn’t quite nail the essence of grief or how it makes you viscerally alive to your own mortality. In an album full of complexity, here is a pat line that stands out like a sitar at a trad session.
The other critique is that Gorillaz have never sounded more like themselves. It’s going on for 25 years since Albarn fine-tuned the formula where he croons in his Britpop burr while beats ping and shudder, and then a guest rapper comes swinging in. That blueprint endures – but it is now washed with tears and mellowed by the understanding that, if it’s a pain to be hurtling towards old age, we may all take comfort knowing that the alternative is a lot worse.
