Read our ranking of all nine of Blur’s studio albums
Damon Albarn calls The Ballad of Darren, “the first legit Blur album” since 1999’s 13. That’s 24 years. There are two albums credited to Blur in-between: 2003’s Think Tank, which guitarist Graham Coxon left the group early in the making of, and without Graham’s guitar, backing vocals and general input, it lacks that essential Blurriness and feels more like one of Albarn’s other projects (Gorillaz, The Good The Bad & The Queen); and 2015’s surprise comeback The Magic Whip which was created from jams the band recorded while stuck in Singapore after a Japanese festival was canceled, and finished two years later by Graham Coxon and Stephen Street (who produced Blur’s first five albums) who presented the songs to Albarn for lyrics and vocals. By contrast, The Ballad of Darren, Albarn says, is “legit” as it was made much like they did in the ’90s, with all of Blur in a room together.
I get where Albarn is coming from but The Magic Whip definitely sounds like a Blur album, as slight and off the cuff as it may be. The Ballad of Darren feels purposeful, however, and is without question the best Blur album since 13.
Like The Magic Whip, Blur’s ninth album was born of unique circumstances. Offered the opportunity to play two huge shows at Wembley Stadium in July 2023, Blur wanted to make those all the more special with a new record. At the same time, Damon Albarn had written a batch of songs while on tour in America that didn’t quite fit in the Gorillaz or solo categories. He brought those songs to the rest of the band and, feeling the old Blur magic immediately, they recorded quickly with producer James Ford (Arctic Monkeys, Depeche Mode). The Ballad of Darren was announced just two weeks after they finished it, and here we are.
Like 13, which was made after Albarn’s messy split with Elastica’s Justine Frischman, The Ballad of Darren is intensely personal and seems to be, at least partially, another breakup album. (While there’s been nothing official said, rumors have swirled that he and longtime girlfriend Suzi Winstanley have separated.) “I would like if you’ve got the time to talk to you about what this breakup has done to me,” he sings on the musically chipper “Barbaric” before getting to the chorus: “I have lost the feeling that I thought I’d never lose / Now where am I going?”
Losing “that feeling that I thought I’d never lose” could also be seen as a treatise on aging, as Blur have all hit their mid-’50s. Albarn has resided on Melancholy Hill for a long time now, and more than anything, The Ballad of Darren has has a warm, wistful feel, with more swaying autumnal ballads than upbeat rockers. Opener “The Ballad” initially sounds like it could’ve been on an Albarn solo album (with a nod right at the start to The Specials’ “Ghost Town”) but Coxon, James and Rowntree all bring their distinctive qualities to it, adding up to that unmistakable, if mellowed, Blur sound. With lines that are clearly about the band (“We travelled around the world together”), it sets a reflective tone somewhere between nostalgia and regret that carries through the rest of the album.
That mellow, pensive side has been a part of Blur going all the way back to “Sing,” and provides some of The Ballad of Darren‘s most moving moments. In particular, penultimate song “Avalon” is a late period classic, with Albarn looking back on his life and his band, asking, “What is the point in building Avalon if you can’t be happy when it’s done?” over gentle brass as the song builds to a swelling, weepy chorus. Equally as good is “St Charles Square,” a glammy rocker with a fantastic, snakey lead from Coxon than could’ve been on Modern Life is Rubbish, and has Albarn wincing at his 20-something antics (“every generation has its gilded poseurs”).
The rest of the album — clocking in at a trim 36 minutes — is uniformly great, from the downcast pop of “Barbaric” and “The Narcissist” to the gorgeous “Goodbye Albert” and “Faraway Islands.” The album ends with “The Heights,” another elegant ballad that has Albarn once again in reflection. “Seeing through the coma in our lives / something so bright out there you can’t even see it / are we running out of time?” as the song builds to a noisy finish, ending abruptly as if someone decided to shut off the stereo. Is this the end? The Ballad of Darren feels like a swan song and would make a perfect capper to a remarkably consistent discography, but it’s also too good for it to be the end.