The Good, The Bad & The Queen - The Good, The Bad & The Queen (Parlophone)
4/5
By: Michael Cragg
January is a bleak month at the best of times. Christmas has been and gone, money's done the same and the TV is stuffed full of adverts designed to make you feel guilty for your New Year exploits. If that wasn't bad enough, Celebrity Big Brother appears again to remind us that famous idiots are more annoying then your everyday kind. It's almost a relief when February rolls around.
Damon Albarn may seem like an unlikely hero amidst the malaise, but with 'The Good, The Bad & The Queen' he's given January, and perhaps 2007, a soundtrack. Originally touted as a solo record, many believed it would bring together Albarn's love of world music with his pop sensibility, a knack that had been in further evidence through two albums as Gorillaz. Following sessions in Nigeria with drummer Tony Allen, Albarn flew back to Britain and duly scrapped the album. After production work on the second Gorillaz album, 'Demon Days', Danger Mouse (aka Brian Burton - this is something that isn't said enough) reignited Albarn's interest in the project and having enlisted the help of former Clash bassist Paul Simonon and ex-Verve guitarist Simon Tong, the band was formed.
As with the Britpop era of Blur, Albarn has once again turned his eye to British life, focusing again on London and its current climate. It's an album very much of its time, a collection of songs held together by an overriding sense of dread and unease. As with Thom Yorke's 'The Eraser', it speaks of war, social unrest, paranoia and carries just a glimmer of hope for the future. Whilst Yorke fractured his images of war through an abstract prism, Albarn is more direct; "I don't want to live a war/ That's got no end in our time". Musically, it relishes in minor keys, creeping strings and baroque images of gas works, floods and binge drinking. As I said, perhaps the perfect soundtrack to a bleak January.
Unlike Albarn's previous musical output, the 12 songs here rarely carry a chorus or follow a strict verse-chorus-verse pattern. Chunks of melody and rhythm chime together or slowly drift past one another. Sometimes it can take four or five listens to individual tracks before any sense of a song starts to filter to the surface. First single 'Herculean' is a case in point, its elegiac charm revealing itself coyly, trying hard to remain hidden beneath the rust. But this being Albarn there are numerous joys to be had, not least in the gorgeous 'Green Fields' which marries a desperate lyric abour gnetrification to a shimmering melody. The same goes for the creepy 'Behind The Sun', all jagged strings and off-kilter rhythms, or the relatively upbeat title track which closes the album on a sprint, the only time these four musicians really let loose.
It's also this final track that highlights the main gripe with 'The Good, The Bad & The Queen'. Sometimes you long for a bit more of the recklessness shown at the end of the album. Whilst each track is expertly played and produced, you never get a real sense of all four musicians having fun together. Also, this is very much Albarn's baby, and you can't shake the feeling that Tony Allen is underused on many of the songs. But these are minor quibbles of an album that reveals itself slowly but that rattles around your head for days after. Perhaps as January stretches into the chill of February, it could soundtrack perfectly the long stretch towards the summer.
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