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THINK TANK
(VIRGIN)
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On their second release since stumbling on a left-field American hit with "Song 2," from an album that found the Britpop pretty boys reinventing themselves as something of a Pavement-inspired guitar-rock band, Blur show no signs of even attempting to revisit the odd mix of influences that inspired 1997’s Blur (Virgin). Instead, they seem to be following Radiohead down the path toward studio experimentalism and willful obscurity. This from a band of Colchester art-school grads who began their career a dozen years ago by jumping on the tail end of the Stone Roses–fueled neo-psych pop trend (remember "There’s No Other Way"?) before delivering the tidy and very British mod-pop masterpiece Parklife (EMI) in 1994. Their continuing evolution as songwriters has found singer Damon Albarn and guitarist Graham Coxon displaying an almost Bowie-esque talent as hunters of cool. And if that hasn’t always translated to a larger audience in the US, it has at least made Blur one of the more interesting and challenging bands to come out of the ’90s Britpop pack. Think Tank, like 1999’s 13 (Virgin), makes few concessions to mainstream accessibility. Whether Albarn and Coxon started with a batch of pop tunes that were later deconstructed (with help on a handful of tracks by William Orbit and Norman "Fatboy Slim" Cook) or the band relied on some kind of random, in-the-studio composition technique is anyone’s guess. But the result is a diffuse collection of electro-organic mélanges that rely on everything from droning electronic backdrops and programmed beats to moody, lightly orchestrated numbers that take full advantage of Albarn’s continental croon. That would include harshly distorted, hard-driving, punkish salvos with free-form vocals, lo-fi piano ballads, and nearly atonal excursions with free-form sax soloing. Obvious hooks are hard to find, but the band never seem to run out of ideas. And it’s those creative sparks, more than anything, that fuel Think Tank and keep even the most indulgent episodes on an appealing track.
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