Gorillaz began as a lark but turned serious once it became
Damon Albarn's primary creative outlet following the slow dissolve of
Blur. Delivered five years after the delicate whimsical melancholy of 2005's
Demon Days,
Plastic Beach is an explicit sequel to its predecessor, its story line roughly picking up in the dystopian future where the last album left off, its music offering a grand, big-budget expansion of
Demon Days, spinning off its cameo-crammed blueprint. Traces of
Albarn's Monkey opera can be heard, particularly in the hypnotic Mideastern pulse of
"White Flag," but
Damon's painstaking pancultural pop junk-mining no longer surprises -- when hip-hop juts up against Brit-pop, it's expected -- yet it still has the capacity to delight no matter which direction
the Gorillaz may swing.
Lou Reed's crotchety croak on
"Some Kind of Nature" has the same kind of gravitational pull as
Mos Def leading
the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble through the intensely circling
"Sweepstakes," while the group reaches new heights of sparkling pop on
"Superfast Jellyfish," aided by the return of
De La Soul -- the rappers who propelled
"Feel Good Inc." -- and an appearance from
Gruff Rhys, the
Super Furry Animals frontman who is an ideal fit for
Gorillaz (possibly because
SFA's genre-bending pop and
Pete Fowler artwork clearly paved the way for
Albarn and
Jamie Hewlett's collaboration). A common thread among all these tracks is that they find
Albarn ceding the spotlight to his fellow musicians, preferring to be the puppetmaster behind the curtain, and
Plastic Beach works best when he's the composer and producer, finding hidden strengths within his guests -- having
Mick Jones and
Paul Simonon for the elastic title track, coaxing some powerful performances out of
Bobby Womack -- but often when
Albarn takes center stage his laconic drawl lets the air out of the balloon. Curiously, much of this arrives toward the beginning of the album, the record gaining momentum as it unspools, working toward its climax, but the overall album accentuates moody texture over pop hooks. This emphasis means
Plastic Beach is the first
Gorillaz album to play like a soundtrack to a cartoon -- which isn't entirely a bad thing, because as
Albarn grows as a composer, he's a master of subtly shifting moods and intricately threaded allusions, often creating richly detailed collages that are miniature marvels. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine
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