Album review: Gorillaz – "The Now Now"

During Gorillaz's US tour in 2010 behind Plastic Beach singer / co-creator Damon Albarn decides to spend time on the road by making a brand new album on his iPad. Released on Christmas Day that year, The Fall was Albarn's diary when he was crossing one of the most populous places in the world and still felt lonely . No matter where he went or how much he accomplished, Albarn has always found inspiration in isolation. The goal of Gorillaz himself is to be a separation of norms from being a rock band and the last time the world watched Gorillaz, robotics lasts (ironically) Humanz from last year, it seemed Albarn and Jamie Hewlett's cartoon creations had become more detached from reality than ever before. Is there a way to get back from there?

It is there that The Fall enters, or in this case The Now Now . Gorillaz's sixth studio album was not made on an iPad and was not made while Albarn was on tour. What he shares with The Fall is that it seems to be an addition to Gorillaz's latest work corpus. While The Fall was the spatial and light coda of the fuzzy funk of Plastic Beach The Now Now is the refreshing cooling of the aggressive aggression of [19659002] Humanz . Only 11 tracks with a running time of 41 minutes, The Now Now looks like the easiest Gorillaz album to take. There are no experimental tracks, no heavy guitars with feedback, no orchestral arrangements keywords by Dennis Hopper. This is a slow and glitzy synth mishmash that would suit the elevator music in the offices of DFA Records.

"Lake Zurich" and "Tranz" look like LCD Soundsystem demos with their clap drums and disco synths, while "Magic City" and "Fire Flies" sound Like what the Cure would play when they would like to disappear in the smoke and the lights at the end of their concerts. The only true tracks of Gorillaz are in the goofy reggae rebound of the plot "Humility", one of the lightest tracks the band has ever made, and the haunted urban groove of "Hollywood". Everyday Robots with the pure acoustics of "Idaho" and "Souk Eye". The band seems lost and aimless after having had such a strong and aggressive take on their music on Humanz . As The Fall is as if Albarn was looking out of his window, aimlessly observing the world that passed him but without making further observations.

First impressions are anything but The Now Now is more comatose than awake. "Humility" finds Albarn (or his 2D cartoon avatar) adrift in any head space where he is currently trying to find something that will bring him back to Earth ("And if you come back to find me / Tu better shoot / Shoot it true, I need you on the photo "). And then … the album does not really seem to go anywhere, or at least any interesting place. 2D is alone and wants to start again on "Kansas" ("Because I'm about to solve it / Put my engine in overdrive / So I can breathe again, photosynthesis again / With the green hills of my house" ). Later, 2D is alone in the big city, always trying to find something to seize in "Magic City" ("You lost me in Magic City / You've interrogated me all / J & # 39; I hope that I will go home from here Wednesday / And this magical city lets me go "). And then at the nearest album "Souk Eye", 2D has finally returned home and yet yearns for bright lights and the look of Los Angeles ("Why ride waves on me now, it's a good thing!" is everything I need, dreaming come find me, be forgiven / I'll be an ordinary guy for you, I've never said I would do that / Why do you look so beautiful now when you are so sad? "). There seems to be some missing pieces in the story of the album on how 2D and co. He has gone from drifting into an empty culture to nostalgia as a lost lover. The two best-flowing pieces of history are "Hollywood," where Jamie Principle and rapper Snoop Dogg tour Gorillaz through the temptation of Los Angeles ("I put the cake on the board / Jealousy and me? do a date / I'm a vibe with that, Hollywood, no one I'll survive this time. " "Idaho" meanwhile is something of a hangover at the weekend lost on "Hollywood" where the group returns to drifting aimlessly ("In search of clear water / I had to take the control / Out there in the wilderness "). It's vague, but at least it's a good follow-up to an ambience on the album.

Apart from that, The Now Now is a pointless and boring affair. While Albarn has always shown loneliness creatively before, his words seem bored and blurry. And even in this case, the music does not take any risk and does not even recycle the interesting elements of the sound of Gorillaz. One has the impression that the first ideas of Albarn will turn into stepping stones to full songs. It's a fair bit that the cover of the album is of a distorted shadow of 2D running alone. Like Damon Albarn thinking that he has a clear vision for Gorillaz's next album while it is actually only a distant mirage