The 50 best albums of 2023, No 8 – Blur: The Ballad of Darren

Blur’s ninth album is a perfect mixture of middle-aged regret with swooning pop, a strong career summation

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Previous to the release of The Ballad of Darren, Damon Albarn described Blur’s ninth album as “a report that kind of delves into what it’s wish to be 55”. However it appears extra universal than that, drenched in the horror of realising that point has handed and continues to move. There’s mourning for the years you’ve already lived and the emotions you’ve lengthy since felt, and nervousness for the years and emotions but to return. It appears to say that life is long till it’s not, that love is protected until it’s not, that the world is straightforward to exist in till it’s not: realisations that daybreak repeatedly even in your youthful years. Blur have all the time been capable of balancing tender introspection with lairy pop tunes and The Ballad of Darren, swooning and seasoned, is certainly one of their absolute best.

In a yr peppered with guitar-heavy albums that deal in very actual mid-life grief – Queens of the Stone Age, Foo Fighters – Blur’s is a less specific, softer focus type of anguish. For much of the document Albarn sings in his decrease register like a washed-up lounge act, deep and easy and filled with beautiful regret. It makes lyrics that seem like adolescent poetry on the page sound deeply profound: “I simply appeared out to the purpose / Where the words, they're hitting me / In a full-on assault,” he sings on opener The Ballad, a mirror ball-dappled, end-of-night lament. The peppy Barbaric is an exercise in denial – it reads like devastation and feels like a day at the seashore. Russian Strings is probably the most lovely track you’ll ever hear concerning the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Relationships end, selves are reassessed, goodbyes are stated and the longer term is eyed warily.