Gorillaz- Plastic Beach

Add Date- March 9
Artist- Gorillaz
Album- Plastic Beach
Label- Virgin
Genre- Chill, trippy, happy aka typical but more mature Gorillaz

Gorillaz (or technically, Damon Albarn of Britpop group Blur & artist Jamie Hewlett) is back with their first new album since 2005’s smash hit Demon Days. For the first time, it feels like Gorillaz has evolved beyond a (gimmicky by today’s standards) “virtual band” composing of soundtracks to 4 cartoon characters. As groundbreaking as Gorillaz’s sound and ideas (statements on consumerism and the music industry abound) were back in 1999, the music world has caught up to the group. Before, the music seemed incidental to the storyline of 2D, Noodle, Russel and Murdoc. For those of us who never got caught up in the group’s mythology, this album is warm, beautiful and inviting, so long as you don’t expect a smash hit like “Clint Eastwood” or “Feel Good, Inc.”

This album is good, very good in fact, and the combinations of traditional music (the Lebanese Orchestra for Oriental Arabic Music) and rappers (Mos Def and Snoop Dogg, most noticeably) sounds much more fluid than similar attempts by groups like N.A.S.A. Musically, without considering the rapping, I’d say that Plastic Beach most closely resembles Blur’s last album, the fantastically lush Think Tank from 2003.

Single “Stylo” combines the crooning of Bobby Womack to Mos Def’s understated verses to an electro-funk beat reminiscent of the 70’s. “Superfast Jellyfish”, helmed by hiphop vets De La Soul, veers off into upbeat glitch territory. “Empire Ants” is a stunning chill-out ballad that is one of the best tracks Albarn’s ever recorded, and “Some Kind of Nature” is the best cranky ol’ Lou Reed has sounded in years!. Also, anyone with 2 ears and a heart will LOVE album standout “On Melancholy Hill” (which isn’t sad despite the title).