Review-a-palooza #5:

Gorillaz - Plastic Beach

Damon Albarn has returned with co-creator Jaime Hewlett to fictional music super group Gorillaz for a spectacular third album that builds on the two previous outings. I feel slightly embarrassed writing about anything Albarn’s done. In my wild and misspent youth in the barren prairies of western Canada, I willfully wrote off Blur as ‘the group that wrote that woo-hoo song’ and never gave them a second glance until I was much older. Putting past indiscretions aside, this is one hell of a fine album.

Damon has grown in leaps and bounds as a composer and this album showcases his ability to create a cohesive sonic experience. A task made daunting with a mish mash of musical genres at play and a host of guest artists, each able to steal a song away. Some of the music giants that appear on the album are Snoop Dogg, Lou Reed, Stuff White People Like certified Mos Def, Paul Simonon and Mick Jones and a powerful and evocative Bobby Womack, who appears at the request of his daughter who assured the aging soul man that the Gorillaz are “cool”. As with previous Gorillaz albums this is a mix of Dub, Electro, Hip Hop and especially pop and Plastic Beach adds to this with Bollywood strings and some Chicago flavoured horns.

It’s hard to pick out tracks that stand out, as they are all pretty tight. Glitter Freeze featuring The Fall’s Mark E. Smith is great. Some Kind of Nature featuring Lou Reed is a great tonal piece, and it’s said that Lou Reed demanded no one be present during the recording. Being bashful maybe? Either way, the end result is phenomenal. The album really gets its legs on its third track; White Flag featuring London hip hop artists Kano, Bashy and the Lebanese National Orchestra for Oriental Arabic Music.

To me the only song that never really takes off is second off the top; Welcome to the World of the Plastic Beach with the lethargic rhymes of Snoop Dogg. After the weight and scope hinted at during the Orchestral Intro, Snoop and company don’t really reign in the scope that Plastic Beach achieves in latter tracks.

This is a near perfect album. The production, composition, they are all top notch. This is a clear front runner for every "Best of 2010" list out there.