On July 2nd, Blur released two new songs. It’s the group’s first material to see the light of day in a couple of years. And though they’ve stayed busy in the intervening time with sporadic live shows and innumerable side projects, they are now back in full effect. A retrospective box set is due for release at the end of July, concerts are scheduled, and their new single is available on iTunes.
The B-side, “The Puritan” is typical uptempo Blur, a quick blast of rinky-tink drum machine, keyboard bleeps and bloops and hyper-strummed guitar, that builds to a “la-la-la” singalong chorus and an avalanche of snare and crashing cymbals. It’s great, it’s a nice bit of inconsequential fun; an energetic tune that stands with the group’s classic material.
And then there’s “Under The Westway”. The A-side, the main attraction, the thesis statement, a song that lives up to every hope and expectation I may have had. It’s heart-wrenching in the best Damon Albarn tradition, evoking both the wistful Britpop of Blur’s heyday and the grandiose, yearning melodies of his The Good The Bad & The Queen project – a vision of imagined England, a pastoral memory, a transmission from a fading empire. Four minutes of industrial revolution, steam-powered factory chimes, sweetly harmonizing backing vocals, and moaning echoes of guitar: the sound of drinking and surviving, working in concrete towers, dreaming of green and pleasant lands. Alex James’ bass and Dave Rowntree’s percussion raise the framework and build out the sides, Damon’s voice and piano chisel out the details and draw back the curtains, and Graham Coxon works steadily in the background, taking buzzsaws to overly clean edges, dropping wiry discharges of guitar noise as he shapes the facade.
The music builds and lulls, tides pushing around and lapping at the perimeter. Little bursts of dissonance crop up throughout. There’s a moment where the words grow past the end of a measure, syllables crammed into a line like they’re trying on trousers they last wore in high school. And the momentary distractions remind us that we’re listening – keeping us off-balance enough to stay fully engaged in each moment, to breathe along with the rhythms, apply our own imagery to the words tumbling past. The lyrics look to the skies even as they stay firmly earthbound, wistful and older and wiser, chasing an elusive dream of hope and glory. A band strikes up, filling the air, composing an ethereal, evocative monument of sound with a roomful of instruments and the weight of experience.