Graham Coxon Verse, Chorus, Monster

"The Ballad of Darren is the first legit [Blur] album since 13," Blur vocalist Damon Albarn recently told Consequence of Sound. Putting aside Think Tank (2003), which saw guitarist Graham Coxon's exit, and 2015's The Magic Whip (which was reportedly pieced together by Coxon after Albarn threw in the towel), that's 24 years. The world has changed… a lot. The band has changed… a lot. (Check out now-sober Coxon's entertaining memoir Verse, Chorus, Monster! for more on that.) But listening to "St. Charles Square," it's like Blur picked right back up from 1999. Coxon's woozy guitar is all over the place, a stumblebum determined to lead the way to fun. Albarn opens up the song by declaring "I fucked up" and unleashes fright-show screams and haunted-house howls. It could have been right at home on 13, and it's a delight. "Barbaric" sounds crisp and sunny—maybe the sunniest song Blur has ever done, versus the blinding camp of, say, "Girls & Boys"—even as the lyrics devastate: "And I would like if you've got the time/ To talk to you about what this breakup has done to me/ I have lost the feeling that I thought I'd never lose."

"The Ballad of Darren is the first legit [Blur] album since 13," Blur vocalist Damon Albarn recently told Consequence of Sound. Putting aside Think Tank (2003), which saw guitarist Graham Coxon's exit, and 2015's The Magic Whip (which was reportedly pieced together by Coxon after Albarn threw in the towel), that's 24 years.