Friday, March 19, 2010
By Ari Hamilton
Entertainment Editor
For a band made up of fictional members, Gorillaz have consistently displayed genuine talent, integrating a wide array of styles to ensnare a broad array of fans. Their third and most recent album, “Plastic Beach,” is no exception to that trend.
The new album continues Gorillaz’ tried and true formula of melodically simple tracks with multiple tempos and styles, all brought out by the performances of an increasing number of famed guest artists.
Gorillaz is the joint project of former Blur frontman Damon Albarn and comic book artist Jamie Hewlett. Hewlett invented four fictional musicians—bassist Murdoc, singer 2-D, drummer Russel and guitarist Noodle—to crew the band.
After the release of their 2001 self-titled debut album, Gorillaz garnered almost universal acclaim for their unique blend of trip-hop rhythm and rhyme with alternative rock influences. For their second album “Demon Days,” Gorillaz assembled a legion of contributing artists from a variety of musical styles, including De La Soul and Roots Manuva.
“Plastic Beach” varies very little from this formula. It contains a similar number of high-caliber guest artists, including Lou Reed and Bashy, that round out the album nicely and give it extra depth.
In a style similar to “Demon Days,” “Plastic Beach” begins with an intro track and then jumps straight into Gorillaz’s predominant style: hip-hop with touches of electronica and rap.
The first track, “Welcome to the World of the Plastic Beach,” is an excellent example of this stylistic blend, featuring the vocal talent of Snoop Dogg. Other memorable tracks in a similar style are the first single from “Plastic Beach,” “Stylo,” and “Empire Ants,” which features indie-electronic group Little Dragon.
“Plastic Beach” proves that variety is the Gorillaz’ greatest asset, as the instrumental track “Glitter Freeze” (reminiscent of “Double Bass” from “Gorillaz”) proves with its driving, heavy, distorted bass line, over which spots of synth keyboard nimbly skirt.
“On Melancholy Hill” is a standout track, one of the few where the vocals harmonize with the instrumentals. It is different from the rap and hip-hop that is rooted into almost every other song on the album.
As mentioned before, Gorillaz have not drastically altered their musical recipe. Despite this, the number of sounds accessible to the band, because of the nearly absurd number of featured talents, keeps the album from sounding stale in comparison to either “Gorillaz” or “Demon Days.”
Albarn’s continued use of musical interruptions in the form of brass solos, minimal synth-lines and various items from his bag of electronica-centric tricks is a welcome aspect of “Plastic Beach.” Gorillaz continue to scavenge everything appealing from the genres they take inspiration from, melding the favorable aspects into an album that improves with each run-through.
The artistic growth in “Plastic Beach” is both noticeable and significant, however minor it may be. The album was written in a clearly poppier vein than previous releases, with tracks like “Sweepstakes” emphasizing simple harmonies and copious electronic effects.
Furthermore, many of the tracks have a more exotic tone than the band’s previous works did, whether due to different set of percussion instruments or the introduction of Lebanese National Orchestra for Arabic Music.
In terms of depth and complexity, Gorillaz have never been an outstanding band. Despite this, the sheer breadth, flexibility and listenability (fictional bands sometimes require fictional words) of their music on “Plastic Beach” makes the musical merit of this make-believe band more than believable to loyal fans and new audiences alike.
“Plastic Beach” is available on iTunes for $9.99 and at music retailers everywhere.
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