This felt like the last album I really listened to in 2018. It soundtracked much of my November and December as the long countdown to Christmas and a proper break from work proceeded. Of course it's blatantly apparently a state of nation address and will turn many off, aside from the fact that it's fronted by Damon Albarn, once as divisive a figure in British music as Tony Blair became in British politics.
Over the last twenty years Albarn has gradually rehabilitated himself into a place where he's a highly respected figure following his worst crimes of the Parklife period. Not least in terms of this process of cultural reconstruction was the fine eponymous Good, The Bad & the Queen debut album which came out eleven years back.
That record focused on what it means and feels like to be English, as Albarn so often has throughout his career, (Gorillaz being the obvious exception). It was almost inevitable that he'd have something to say about Brexit, the cloud and condition Britain has been dragged under in recent years, and he Paul Simonon, Simon Tong and Tony Allen have now made their statement on all that in Merrie Land, the band's second album and the accompanying round of gigs and interviews.
The record's a music hall, end of the pier dub elegy and a wonderfully atmospheric and evocative one. Like Brexit, it's divisive and won't be for everybody but I think it's a record that reflects the country I live in better than any other I've heard this year. It's by turns wry, mournful and melancholic. It reminds me of poetry, of classic Victorian novels, black and white movies and the great wave of British political music of 1978 to 1981. Oh and cold windy late nights in train stations, seaside towns in winter and evenings spent in Weatherspoon Pubs. And lots more. Britain for better and worse.
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