Blur - Think Tank
(EMI)
How this ended up being so good is a mystery to me. The first time I heard it, on a friend's computer, it sounded like bad club music... the fact that Graham Coxon was missing from all but one track on the album further solidified in my mind that this would be a weak release. Nevertheless, because I'm compulsive and terrible with money, when I was home for a week earlier this month, I picked up Think Tank on a whim, just because, you know, I like Blur and didn't want the album to be what I expected. And it wasn't.
Think Tank is mournful dance music. Its beat-heavy club cuts for narcoleptics. It's the sound of a band losing one of its core members and changing completely. I would go so far as to say that it's one of—if not the—best Blur albums released. Besides the obvious commercial cuts (which grow on you more and more each subsequent listen), the album's vibe is that of loss—but loss tempered with the knowledge that through all hurt comes growth.
Damon Albarn's voice has never sounded better, and he puts it to good use on opening track "Ambulance". "I ain't got nothing to be scared of", he intones, as synth swells and bass overcome a clicking drum machine beat. The first time I heard it I was automatically seized with a desire to set it to film. Its lyrics denote the album's thesis: that love overcomes most everything, and that there is birth through pain.
Other tracks follow in this vein: the bittersweet "Out of Time" (which counterpoints its heartfelt lyrics with a bizarre guitar solo), "Sweet Song", which is easily the album standout, with its organ hums and wistful melody, and the closer, "Battery in Your Leg"—which fully completes the albums themes of pain and love. Even though the opening line is "this is a ballad for the good times", the music in the song is as sad as you can imagine; it seems to suggest that the good times are over. But this comes on the heels of an album's worth of hope: if the good times are indeed over, then it won't be long before they start again.
13 was Blur's breakup album. Think Tank is the album after the breakup but before the recovery. Time will tell if Blur will continue without Coxon, and whether or not they will continue to amaze as they have with Think Tank.
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