Gorillaz | Plastic Beach

Virgin (2010)
By ZETH LUNDY  |  March 16, 2010
3.0 3.0 Stars

 OTR031910_gorillaz_main

Although this is their first album without an indie-chic producer, the fake band with fake cartoon characters known as Gorillaz stay the course as a very real post-Blur conduit for Damon Albarn's quasi-apocalyptic, '80s-daydreaming, neon-pop habit. It's best to ignore the concept and dig the lean, razor-sharp music: vibrant, addictive, and very much the product of looking back at a three-decade-old æsthetic once thought disposable.

Guest turns from Super Furry Animals' Gruff Rhys and the loopy De La Soul ("Superfast Jellyfish") and warble-throated Lou Reed ("Some Kind of Nature") argue that this is the most cartoony Gorillaz album yet; the inclusion of Snoop Dogg and Bobby Womack makes a case for Absurd Record of the Year. Albarn's voice often plays the supporting character, but he steps into the spotlight for the guestless Kinks-with-synths tracks "On Melancholy Hill" and "Rhinestone Eyes," underscoring the point that Gorillaz are more than just a groovy bunch of incongruities.

With synth tones straight outta Miami Vice and dreamy melodies that cut through the fog-machine haze, Plastic Beach is music for piloting your speedboat beyond the no-wake zone, or for looking back from the future with a sentimental affinity for the past.

Related: Ghost stories, Winged migration, Injustice for all, More more >
  Topics: CD Reviews , Entertainment, Entertainment, De La Soul,  More more >
| More


Most Popular
ARTICLES BY ZETH LUNDY
Share this entry with Delicious
  •   BROWN BIRD | FITS OF REASON  |  March 18, 2013
    Brown Bird, a boundary-pushing Americana duo from Rhode Island, make music that touches upon that can't-put-my-finger-on-it amalgamation of past and future sounds.
  •   NICK CAVE & THE BAD SEEDS | PUSH THE SKY AWAY  |  February 20, 2013
    Much like the similarly low-key The Boatman's Call , Cave's highly anticipated 15th album with the Bad Seeds manages the puzzling feat of making a great band seem inconsequential, if not entirely absent.
  •   SCOTT WALKER | BISH BOSCH  |  November 27, 2012
    Scott Walker's late-period about-face is one of the strangest in the annals of pop music.
  •   BILL WITHERS | THE COMPLETE SUSSEX AND COLUMBIA ALBUMS  |  October 31, 2012
    Bill Withers has always been the down-to-earth, odd-man-out of the '70s soul brothers: he's the one who came bearing a lunch box on the cover of his relaxed 1971 debut, Just as I Am .
  •   R.E.M. | DOCUMENT [25TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION]  |  September 19, 2012
    Fans of R.E.M. enjoy arguing over which album was the band's true shark-jump, but 1987's Document was inarguably the end of a groundbreaking era.

 See all articles by: ZETH LUNDY